Cat Tyc
Penetralia
I should
Be dissuaded
From cutting
My own bangs
But I have
Scissors
And Tits free
My friend
Is stalking
His ex dog
On instagram
Post break up
With a woman
He liked but
Did not love
He misses the
Dog
Our plan
For the evening
Is to do
Things
That will
Make our
Therapists mad
I will argue
That this is
What Rancière.
Is talking about
When he
Said
‘Make something sensible’
The difference
Between what we mean
By the sensitive
And having sensitivities
We detach completely
Shape / body
And then
We can tell
them the Demonic
Comes from
Not being in
The center.
By getting
Closer to the
Earth to undo
That ancestral
Place
When we were
Young
We saw nothing
But potential
In calling ourselves
Something like
Goth or punk
Or whatever
I used to take
Pictures of bodega
Cats and called it
My art and then
it began
To diminish
The hunt
For feeling
Intensifies
A classic perv
Loving the parts
We fill up
With breath
And expel
It all
At once.
It is not
Lost on me
That the night
I go out
Looking for
Trouble
I meet a woman
Named Lilith
Strobe lights
Will rip through
The mattress
And I will
Miss your call
In the morning
So early you ask
Me about the meaning
Of what it means
When people talk
About the universal
In philosophy
I admit -
(I had to look it up) -
But you want so much
To know what I think
And that makes me
Feel so loved
And also
So borrowed
The crowd source
Of knowledge
A collective
Feeling.
Whisper Network
Because I thrive when underestimated
Don’t doubt me
I remind myself
In the bookstore
When I found myself alone
With the owner who was sitting at a desk
Without any pants on
That time I walked in
To sell some books
That day I was so broke
And I just wanted to buy dinner
Ronaldo Wilson said something
Once about moving beyond the
Theory into the imperative
And these moments
The underwater breathing
Out of a moment you wish
You could forget
Or just surpass the possibility
That this could turn into a survival
Thing so one
Disassociates as an act of
dissolution of whatever ego
You’d like to try to maintain
It is a bit of a inverse game
One fantasizes about a moment
Of talking back
And coming into a space
That mimics the voices of home
Or the silences.
Because that’s the thing
Most of us didn’t come from a home
A bed of love
The privilege of being told you are
anything
Despite what the world would like you to think
You are not
Fred taught me this was a thing
That funny double bind
Disjointed structure that it is
To be your own hero
The book owner tells me
He had just been thinking of me
That he mentioned my writing
To someone
That didn’t know who I was
As if to remind me
That I was still nothing
As he sat before me with his pants down
My eyes went to the door
To remember there was a way out
Eventually he gave me my money
I bought a poke bowl
And all was forgotten
I was alive
Not violated this time
Thinking about this comedian
Who got famous
From a joke
About how everyone
Has been a little
Raped and every
One laughs when
Things are kind of
true
My chosen family
Is vast & unavailable
Someone made it so
So now
Riding on trains
Is my preferred limbo
The river gives me peace
That choppy crystal floor
& the sunset is so goddamn perfect
& the air is so goddamn clean
I want to go home again
But I don’t even know what that
Means because I thought that was
Something you feel in your heart
The liquor of love
A lie
Often in conversation
I am mostly
disappointed
If the heart is calcified
Assaulted if you will
What depth can open it
When you have gone too far
And there is nowhere else to be ?
I find myself preferring
Solitude with my teeth
In sugar coated pain
Self induced
Because I thrive when underestimated
Don’t doubt me
Cat Tyc is a writer/artist who has three chapbooks, An Architectural Seance (dancing girl press & studio), CONSUMES ME (Belladonna* Collaborative) and I AM BECAUSE MY LITTLE DOG KNOWS ME (Blush Lit). Her most recent work has published in Maggot Brain , The St. Marks's Poetry Project magazine The Recluse, Shock of the Femme and Touch the Donkey.
Her video work has screened at the Microscope Gallery, Anthology Film Archives, Brooklyn Museum, Hauser & Wirth, Kassel Fest and the synthesis gallery. She has directed music videos that have been added to the rotation on LOGO’s NewNowNext and MTVu.
She has been granted residencies and fellowships at Signal Culture and The Flaherty Seminar and has received support from the Foundation of Contemporary Arts.
She is based in Brooklyn and Hudson, NY.