capturing device

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How do you know when it's over?

I.

Do you just know? Does it tell you in a whisper or an email or a brick through your window?

Can you mistake the end for something else say a gallery wall as blank and soundless as waiting on the shore of the Lethe or as torn and uncomprehending as a hospital room?

When is the end just a corner you cannot see around? An empty white space, like a page without words.

II.

Today, I gave myself the gift of blankness.

III.

Someday, I will install an exhibition immediately after an exhibition has ended. In my piece, I will write small narratives beside each of the nail holes, wall dings, and scuff marks left behind by the departed art. Not a punch list of necessary repairs but a narrative landscape of unintended actions made meaningful.

I will write the handwriting on the wall. I will catalog the archaeology that’s been robbed out and melted down. I will write a past slated for the future.