I’ve been visiting my self like a museum. My memories are exhibits, and I’m finally able to visit wings that have been under construction or locked away from visitors for many years. My childhood rebuilt like fossilized dinosaurs frozen in time, vivid memories hung up for display in galleries full of color and emotion, detailed recreations of every room I’ve ever called my own. Only now that I’m older am I able to understand the artist’s notes and the curator’s concise narratives and intentions for the exhibits. I can read the placards now. I can remember, but I’m still unsure if I’m artist or curator.
This is my childhood bedroom. The bunk beds were hand-me-downs from my father and his brother, who shares my name. The bottom bunk is where I slept. I was too afraid of falling off the top in my sleep. And many times I was woken up in the night by my sister coming to sleep with me, brought there by fears of her own. It was the bed I was woken up in when Julian died. It was the bed where I fearfully waited for my father to get home to spank me with the wooden paddle because my mom was too afraid to do it herself. She found out I was gay while I slept in that bed. I watched Pearl Harbor from the top bunk because I was afraid someone would see me cry when the hot guy died.
Does another Chris sleep in that bed now? Or is it rotting away somewhere dark and horrible. Is this idealist version the only thing left of it that exists?
I move on.
I see a painting of myself and the first man I truly loved in a gallery of past romances, in the style of a fresco. We’re sitting together in a park on the stone dam of a pond. The blues in the sky and the verdant greens in the plants around us become chipped and muted around the edges of the canvas. We’re loosely holding each other’s hand and I remember: we were so afraid of people seeing us, but so desperate to be close. Around our hands is a halo much like the Catholic saints. I admire this addition. I think of Michelangelo’s fresco depicting Adam reaching for God, the spark of life, but never touching because divine perfection is unattainable. I decide that is silly because I found divine perfection, in the touch of a man, the love of a man. It’s depicted right here in front of me. My thoughts move to Adam, who had eaten the apple and fell from grace. I attained more than him. I had eaten the apple and found heaven.
I see next a painting of a dark green room with a large window obscured by golden, flowing curtains. It’s the middle of the day, but the room somehow remains dark. I see the dollhouse in the shadows of the corner. I see the unmade twin bed with the duvet crumpled in a heap on the floor. The painting is only of objects and their shadows, how they fill that space, but I can feel her there. My skin crawls at the thought of her, as if she’s reaching out through time to touch me. I wonder where she is now, if she even remembers like I do. I decide I don’t care.
Two paintings catch my attention next. They’re both one work, though each is a separate painting. They compliment each other; the colors and brush strokes of one lead the eye to the other as if the artist painted them side by side and only afterwards realized it was two canvasses, two separate entities. I think of him and how close we were to —
The next painting is abstract, but I know it’s a depiction of a man who loved me, the one I couldn’t love back. I had known him since the 4th grade when I couldn’t understand why I found this 7th grader so fascinating. When we understood, we finally expressed interest in high school. I remember how after that we would find each other over and over again over so many years, wanting it to work out but never succeeding. I recognize the warm colors of the living room in his apartment. Our bodies intertwine in a way that’s beautiful but still feels unfinished. A love story that never quite was. My heart aches here.
I move on.
The next exhibit: an installation that fills an entire room. Though the room is mostly empty, save for a simple pedestal under a single light in the center of this dim, open space. The darkness feels like it’s creeping in, about to devour the tiny area of light. I approach the pedestal and remember the darkness that crept its way into me at a too-young age. It whispered to me always, told me the things about myself that I grew to hate. We acknowledge each other in this space like old acquaintances, the darkness and I. This time I leave behind the spattering of assorted pills on the pedestal. Thankfully I was such an anxious kid that I vomited those pills back up. I exit the room back into the light, but I know the darkness is still with me, my most constant companion.
In the light, I see endless hallways and exhibits, an amalgamation of me. I am the museum, the architecture my bones, and the many floors and wings of this museum are filled with the parts of me. I am the artist, the curator, the builder of these exhibits, and the art I create in the insignificant moments are equals here to the grand, defining moments of my self.
My work isn’t done here.
I move on.