An Unformed Venus, 2019

Ink on paper (55 in x 42 in)

The 13th century castle, Castel Del Monte, is located in the Apulia region of Italy. Only an hour away from my grandfather’s childhood home of Triggiano. 70 years ago, in the soil surrounding it, the crimson mold Streptomyces Peucetius was unearthed. The drug it eventually became, Adriamycin, is named after the Adriatic. The very same waters my grandfather would bathe in, starving, cracking open urchins, whelks, and other shelled creatures.

Referred to as the red death, the red ruby, Adriamycin is administered by my nurse wearing a partial hazmat suit and thick elbow length rubber gloves. The same gloves you would use working with a dangerously corrosive acid. I have to suspend my disbelief that this drug capable of melting the checked linoleum floor beneath my feet will not immediately break through the wall of my veins and render me down to a pool. At the same time I wish for it. It would not be any stranger than the unrecognizable vessel I was inhabiting. One that was being broken down at the cellular level in hopes that it will eventually have the energy and resources to rebuild itself. For days after all liquid exiting my body is the warm pink of blood in milk.

At one point my chest was home to a tumor that took up 90% of my chest cavity. At one point my body stopped producing its own white blood cells. A shot made every bit of marrow in my frame (including my teeth) vibrate in pain as it stimulated white blood cell growth deep in my bones. At one point my body stopped producing red blood cells. I sit and crack jokes about vampires while a stranger’s blood fills the apples of my steroid swollen cheeks.  At one point my body ceases to menstruate. At one point the nerves at the tips of my fingers and toes zap out like the pinhole of light of an unplugged TV (I trip constantly). At one point my hair follicles of course die and I am strikingly smooth and grey toned like a corpse but not like a corpse because supposedly hair and nails continue to grow post mortem. 

Etoposide is derived from the wild mandrake, a root that was believed to kill the person digging it up so it would be harvested by tying a rope to a dog’s neck. Bleomycin is used to induce pulmonary fibrosis in mice and leaves me with permanent stripes of discoloration on my right shoulder like a kiss from lightning. Cyclophosphamide was developed from nitrogen mustard, which also resulted in the production of mustard gas. Oncovin requires one ton of dried periwinkle leaves to produce one ounce of the drug. 

MY MOUTH IS POISON, MY URINE IS POISON, MY TEARS ARE POISON, MY BLOOD IS POISON, MY MUCUS IS POISON. IF I WERE TO TAKE ROOT BY YOUR CROPS IT WOULD BE WORSE THAN ANY SWARM OF LOCUSTS. I AM A PILLAR OF SALT IN THE EARTH.