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168

I get very caught up in the sides of paintings. In the finish’ings. I think it’s because I feel like I’m incompetent to be here. To be a painter. Its class weighs on me like an ill fitting stolen jacket. Stolen not handed down. Audacity is sO important in painting. I have to respect myself before I approach the canvas otherwise it texturely shows all your flaws. You have to command the frame. Or it will swallow you whole. Peasant. Fuck an edge. Let’s tape it and keep it stepping. White edge it has been decided. For now. But the full stop is important. Why a bare canvas edge? Because there’s a beauty in the raw. In the before the after.

[donalddahmer]

167

I was 24 years old when I forgot my age. I lapsed a year like I’d lapsed a brain cell. Charge it to the pandemic they would say. I genuinely got confronted by my mum and grandmother with evidence. ‘Wait...!’ Pronounced ‘weeeeight’ for those unconscious to a patios tongue. ‘You’re 24’ they proclaimed and giggled and wide eyed and giggled some more. I’m trying to stop asking questions in my writing. My lack of clarity or puncture to a solipsist audience doesn’t revive anyone’s soul. DMX died today. Aged 50. In his youth. ‘He battled some daemons’ people are saying. K told me I battle a day daemon. ‘He suffered from addiction since he was 14’. It seems his youth and his life were to be matched, short. It has hit to the core. He had a heart attack a week ago and people have been sharing home videos and best performances since like a red carpet being rolled out for his entry to heaven. Full fanfare. No expense uncovered. Only roses for our king. I’d always wanted to own a Ruff Ryders tee. I like any group that supports and sponsors its group. E V E. Black Man X. Swizz. The first time I loved my initial was when I saw it in the Ruff Ryder font. Never seen an R so strong and a team to match. Goals. Prince Philip died today. Aged 99. In his beyond death. Body propped up. Blood turned cold long before the ‘complications’. The queens cousin. The queens husband. Duke of Gypsy’s Edinburgh. I walked for that man to die. A racist through and through and thawed and thinned to ash. No need for furnace. I watched this horror film with S and K last summer called Dead Silence where the plot twist was that the father hadn’t been alive all along. The new young blonde wife had propped up by holding him through a brace built into the opening of his back, baring his rib cage, replacing his spine. I think of this kind of sordid puppetry when I think of Prince Philip. His soul left with no rest long long ago.

ITS DARK AND HEAVEN IS HOT

[donalddahmer]

166

Found the remote lost the control - a tweet by a streetwear bro

Rain on me by Ashanti is the song of the mind this morning. But not just the hook more so the visual of her batting away the torrential rain that she not only asks for but deluges her body making it not sexy but seemingly flu encouraging. She wails, “ohhhh won’t you take this pain from meeeee” followed by a brisk yet hearty riff of “I don’t wanna live, I don’t want live, baby just...” I think about the joys of British living meaning the weather aforementioned sparks a familial energy in me and the physical sadness too make this an RD delight. Yesterday I spent in bed all day hooked to Girlfriends deadpan ‘rules’ and archaic praxis of what girlhood means and what manhood means and how they have their own separate lanes. There was an episode where the men of the cast stated Halle Berry as a 10, which surprised me but then I remember Berry’s hold on the black community is like Primark’s hold of Priti Patel. Joan asked her partner, a British cast man (information which is relevantly irrelevant here), where she ranks on the ‘scale’. He said obviously she’s a 9. She laughed coyly and questioned again for a more serious answer that on the scale where Halle is a 10 where is she. After being somewhat blown away by the comparison against Berry as it is, as if they couldn’t possibly be ON the same rank, he then replied: “Well, you’re a 5!” Where would you rank? I think on a day like today I’m a 5, but watching it yesterday in my minds hysteria I felt more akin with a 9. Delusion makes the heart grow stronger. Reality makes the heart grow fonder. You choose.

[donalddahmer]

165

Good lines from Girlfriends: > Slap them on the black hand side with truth clarity

> Shoot me dead and shoot me some more

> I think I’m falling in love with Dr ‘Too’little ...Toni fell in love with Pocket Doc

> More like Black men can’t jump

[donalddahmer]

164

Look at the palm of your hand, you should be able to see your face (Ode to Jack Whitten)

Life should be more than a to do list. I’m now typing my reasoning instead of writing because admin has become all too much. Why does the list not ever run out. Do more see more. That sentence was meant to start with a to but there’s just no time. The present. It is what it ain’t. I saw K/F today for the first time in so long. That was a present. I thought of Whitten when K texted ‘come thru!’ and despite my ever growing list life just hadn’t seemed that sporadic in so long so I longed the linger of live people let alone live musicians in one space. Dazed years please meet the jazz years. Please oh please meet the jazz years because internal monologue is such a weighted confusion I’d like to see some street fights, IG battles are for sissy’s. I feel myself getting booed here but you try running into cobweb after @‘d cobweb of people you didn’t even know to not care about. Much better in the open with clean cuts and hospitals for the suturing. This online shit is just left at a 3 second goldfish rule. Fists get talked about for years.

I like how cunning linguist sounds like cunnilingus here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzPet_W5XZc&list=WL&index=16&ab_channel=Artangel]. I think they are the same.

[donalddahmer]

163

I just ended the call on my last therapy session. 22:13 probably more 22:12, that seems more rounded. K said you seem well. You are well. You are good. There’s fear in being well too but we’re working on that. We’ve worked on fear. I feel comfortable with that word. It all seems very storybook. I have a partner, that I’m finally going away tomorrow, I just hung a sculpture in a gallery I’ve admired for years in the space I’ve admired for years, my mum said on her own accord she’d like to get therapy… I feel less crazy. Crazed. K said a significant factor of my development is that I trust myself more. I cried at that. I always thought that should be spelt cryed - it appears softer and more acute to tears than the shriek it too can convey. I did not shriek. I produced tears. Got emotional at a reflected self listening and holding a me. 12 weeks of sessions over two week periods equals 24 weeks. 6 months! Half a year. I had replied that what felt nice was the respect and trust I have for the process of therapy. And nice used here as the inhale and the exhale. Moment of balance that (somehow) echoes out onto the rest of my living.

[donalddahmer]

162

Since you’ve been gone is in my head. I’ve had pop songs I’ve never listened to in my head this week. Break up with your girlfriend, yeah yeah cos I’m bor-r-red had me by the neck last week. What does it mean to be haunted by someone else’s daemon’s? Whats mine, I got it, not mine, you bought it, you pay for it not I. Not we. I’d like to at least press play on the droning out of my existence. Getting wrapped in the loins at the subliminal minimal that I pass by a radio is unfair.

Will the cinema’s be open again? Only if you sit on my lap the conflation of flowers and assholes into a dialectical entanglement of pleasure and abjection

Taking stroll on @burrtomburr, an artist I’d never heard of but seen on my explore page so it seems clear now. Review: He gives me German gay but it could be his akin to Wolfgang Tillmans.

I’m seeing a circle: Robert Morris Felix Gonzales Torres   Tom Burr Dan Graham Michael E Smith

[donalddahmer]

161

Closed in death so long Dead in silence so long Unbeknownst to sound

Overheard on the underground: > “she was fast so no I didn’t know her” scoffed the woman to her friend > “you alright sweetheart” breathed the drunk man down my mask > “next we’ll skateboard there” proclaimed the rollerblader

Just came to read my silly little book in my silly little skirt and all I’m doing is people watching the masses. It’s the hottest day in March in 4 years. And it shows. The sign summer is here is always indicated by the strength of weed in the air X proximity to a patch of green and today reminded me of my astute calculations. In addition I was sharply struck by how much I didn’t want to be there. Here. London. Choose where you spend Summer 21 wisely. Which city will it be. Methinks New York: optimum heat guaranteed. How did they all remember how to put on make up properly? Last year’s Topshop grams are still standing, moto jeans still fit dusted off unbroken unscathed. Specialising in results. Like a summer bod broker. What will we eat. City swapping has got to be timed because every US call has resulted in an “I’m coming to London” announcement with my swift swat back of “well that’s cute because I won’t be there!” I spoke to C tonight and we recited the same telling. But this time I cleverly added perhaps we should time it. I’ll be in NY for June/July. Come me late August. I feel this will need to be reiterated nearer vaccines and bookings so by proxy nearer to capitalism. Only touch base with capitalism, dance in liberal left handed wonder: spectacle and speculation. We promised monthly calls, with the moon I thought, that would be nice.

[donalddahmer]

160

There was a girl reading not just reading but engrossed in a book. This book was by Robert Greene. As her nails crept down its spine the elusive title was revealed: MASTERY. Well I’ll be damned. Yt girls in 2021 still learning the art of their craft. Now that’s praxis makes perfect.

bell hooks would be proud.

[donalddahmer]

159

I left a lot later than usual today as I was dancing in both the shower and my room. Sometimes its clear or more so becomes clear you and only you should exist in your universe for preservation sake. For preservation sake after one loaded scroll revealed a lap dance with the devil, a soldier’s face blurred out by the British media whilst he said ‘cause a 4.5k fire, killed an elephant but hey ho when in Rome’ whilst stationed in Kenya, and a Trump burger shack, I put my headphones on. For preservation sake I allowed the BO of a stranger cover the odour of Mcdonalds in the morning. For preservation sake I kept my bag on the seat next to me whilst in a pandemic despite everyone else filling up the seats next to them.

[donalddahmer]

158

I had nothing to say as music soothed my heart so here’s a list of what I listened to:

TOP FLOOR - Gunna ft. Travis Scott FAR - Gunna ft. Young Thug Sonder Son (Interlude) - Brent Faiyaz Eleven - Khalid ft. Summer Walker Something Real - Summer Walker Triggered Remix - Jhene Aiko No Lames - Kash Doll ft. Summer Walker Riot - Summer Walker safety net - Ariana Grande ft. Ty Dolla $ign Love…(Her Fault) - Wale ft. Bryson Tiller nothin2say (Never Forget) - MIKE Pick Up Your Feelings - Jazmine Sullivan On It - Jazmine Sullivan Lost One - Jazmine Sullivan The Other Side - Jazmine Sullivan Girl Like Me - Jazmine Sullivan ft. H/.e.r. John Redcorn - SiR Penelope Freestyle - Babyfather 34+35 - Ariana Grande Circles - Megan Thee Stallion Freaky Girls - Megan Thee Stallion ft. SZA Gay Guerrilla - Julius Eastman

[donalddahmer]

157

aren’t buses fascinating? This internally hectic robust structure yet frankly wavy when experienced mobile device of community travel. The definition of population is guess how many people are on that bus. Sometimes one sometimes none sometimes a tonne esp in relation to the weather. God forbid you have to get a bus when its raining. People who’ve never gotten the bus remember its group movement capability like its crack. And the sights. Many a brow twitcher. As I sit here and write this I’ve seen a van with x3 delivery motorbikes in the back - I sense robbery brazen as the best cover. Then the first pair of cankles I can solidly confirm go straight from leg to sudden foot. No definition. Sign fixers, get their fix-res, fixed wheelers attempting the hill, goth lovers following a cowboy down the hill, the spinning black windmill on top of a van, Brixton’s windmill herself, service providers with no mask, twin testers, textbook lesbians, the left behind…

-

an elderly aged wail can slide me in two from 3 stories below, bellowed with no room for return 

[donalddahmer]

156

Well. It’s been a tumultuous few days but I’m glad I’m now a dessert. I take comfort in the dry because bubbling only leads to overflow. And overflow leads to over spill and spill means guts branches shredded with no homing device.

Someone smells of candies and I’m surrounded by non chewing adults. The door is vibrating like a mobile buzz is encased in its walls - can technology haunt the living? This journey certainly feels ‘followed’. Whistle lolly. The flute one with different pull notes. That’s what he smells like. 40 to 55 looking white man I can smell your mucus from here. I hope a friend gifts you a long bristle brush for the hard to reach areas and the sweat edged sword.

[donalddahmer]

155

It is difficult to write from the same place. Kapil describes fragments of journey + memory of feelings. It makes me think writers should be moving. They should be living a number of lives as narrators of truth and feeling. As narrators of tales they need something to tear away truth from. It’s what I keep saying RE this lockdown. We need something to butt against. To create friction or response from. I miss the quotidienne of your movements so I can grind to a halt. So I can dip my hand in the stream and say ‘got one!’ Because here in the now we inhabit: the water is still. Stale still with no life nor movement no ability to travel no osmosis for the soul. Dry mouthed sharp inhale of what’s left is left and whats mine is mine. A desert that once held chattering seas now harbours heavy spectral non-presence.

I’d like to go for a walk to the edge of the world and change there for a while. Smothered by the undercurrent underbelly of udder angled loss, excreted left overs cling to the edge of the world, naturally.

I wake up. Read Bhanu Kapil thinking of my 15 minutes of reading then think of how to evade a phone when you need to know when 15 minutes are up. Now I have to consider a bedside alarm clock for separation encouragement rather than anxiety. M hasn’t replied. A has. S* has and it’s a no. I closed my eyes tight to run away from the moment for a moment just for a moment. I’m not a hard edge thing catch ooo my jagged grooves and tug for a second before I can free them; or free myself from them. Perhaps mutually exclusive to the mind yet synonymous from the outside view. My eyes aren’t that swollen this morning but crust resides. Maybe I’ve strengthened the collagen - fuck you 8 step routine. Just give me your four, five seconds to implode. And ‘wallah’ as that influencer so accurately dictated. I feel like a rock edged bubble. Time to push myself uphill and give blood for my sins.

-

I want to sell oils but I can’t. I’m not a stripper.

[donalddahmer]

154

Can I get a dog if I’m not a small talker? They really are magnets for that kind of thing. I’d have to be a mute ear clogged starer or one of those I’m only infatuated by myself and my dog ppl. That’s why a Doberman works for me. That’s a guard dog. A dont fuck with me because I don’t have the time dog. A get to the point or get off dog. I love she/her he/him they/themby alreadyy.

Evening strikes and now I understand I must listen to my sensible side as opposed to my usual fuck shit I do what I want side. It’s uncanny. But in this animal being a support dog of some kind I need to support myself in the choice. Thus, for now, making my way up to a bby beast like a Dobermann makes more sense. So I’m edging on a Basenji as a solid second and then back ups include Vizsla, Whippet (meh) and more exploration into ‘lap dogs’. Buying dogs by temperament and breeds is a real thing that I shouldn’t hide from.

A thick h. A gel crust balled up in the partings that no longer get to be kissed by the sun so held to be kept from the harsh. Do I really miss being kissed, by the sun? Sounds cracked, sounds dry, sounds malnourished. Sounds of the malnourished haunting in their arrival skirt the tops of Brixton’s staircase begging for a more everyone can offer. Getting no more than anyone can bother. Bothered by the more than they can stand as they sway swathed in the city’s sore underbelly bellowed by detritus from the straight and narrow. The up and down green and red lights blue lights black boys look beautiful in blue when beauty is in the eye of the beholder hold her she’s got it cos black looks beautiful in the blue lights we’ve been used to incarcerate used to sectioned used to love her cos by jove she’s got it. But, what light can hold a her like that?

[donalddahmer]

153

I think people who play their music out loud on the bus have to be the most selfish people in the world. This harassed conversation of public versus present. But truly. I like to hear the sound of the underground like the next archivist but not when I’ve been running from myself in my sleep and just about disgusted in the current lack of taste in Drakes newest number that second hand tiktok’s marketing has encouraged me to listen to. This guy really makes money now. You can tell because he rhymes yes with girls. Or no with girls. The track has been turned up so I turn up the hip pop hop in my device and am surprised it too can reach higher heights. Now it’s just a tinny soup of high hat versus reggae versus sultry bessssssst friend versus ‘pull up! revolution!’ versus trepidation of my own soul’s conscience to how well I’ll be able to navigate a day from this first bus journey alone. It’s still the morning. Baby.

Now a Cole world (you had to be there) track has me bopping like I never heard a bumping beat like it before. Conscious rapper to basquiat impersonator pipeline is rich and must be stopped. Which in short means light skin males must be stopped. Sounds about right.

- Something about those who take the tube from Brixton to Stockwell that just seems inherently lazy. I hope I never get stuck in the corner at a tea party with these people.

[donalddahmer]

152

Do you ever get so overwhelmed that you realise you’re just a high functioning daemon?

My fingernails smell of bleach, my hair hurts, and I forgot to put a tampon in but I might for the first time today be prepared to unwind, its gone midnight. Moten is currently giving a lecture I was keen to attend but my back said no. My whole body mind and soul let alone the carapace of my little bit too tight today skin said no. I finish the dessert I felt sick before and after devouring the real the sticky toffee pudding elsewhere.

Free bleeding was note a good idea. Excuse me.

I’m back. To then realise I’m cosying up in todays anti climb paint t-shirt. Reveal my skin to the horrors of the midnight cold hour and swiftly slide back in. This reads like a wailing. A great letter to other intended for self. DO NOT PANIC was in an email.