Danika Sudik
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Performance Art

Sitting in the forest with trees and ferns
Grasses long and masses crunch-squish beneath boots.
On the stage. 
Body as object. 
No more or less important than the life and things, the horizon
That makes up the landscape
I watch this site-specific work 
Writing my text upon this landscape 
Cursive thru my gaze
Typing thru the man beside me
On my other side, a woman sleeping. 
The space to feel her own journey bored her. 
Is she breathing?
And then I know 
This art is wrong
The grass, the tree, the fern is NOT as important 
As the person
Down stage right.  
(Can you say downstage right if you’re outside?)
Because that fern cannot squish that human. 
That human in his boots, with his axe. 
That actor going home to a pre-fab home, built atop the remnants of a factory
Atop the waste
Buried deep in a contract—waiving his right to sue for future birth defects or cancer or whatever. 
This art that melds nature to human to God to magic
Is wrong.
The moss will not raise an axe
So yes, I’ll make up my story from these fragments but 
He is the Center
And so am I
We are exceptional in our ability to destroy
So fast forward
Because this play or art or whatever is going on for-fucking-ever
So fast forward
And we kill the fern, the moss, each tree.
The blades of grass turn brown & turn to dust & blow away
And the air has a taste
Like metal
Dry. Sharp. 
Lungs burning. 
My eyes, red, full of dust
With not moisture enough for a single tear. 
And the fear, and the shame, the realization 
Drops down like bricks
Shattering our skulls
Exploding lungs
The eyes of our two object-bodies locking before
The final, final curtain
And the air that blows
The thought that our air that passes through the space
Between what were my ears
The cool exhale of a blade of grass
Emerging from a cracked earth
Center Stage.
Exceptional.
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