To Whom It May Concern: A Video Experience
Poetry, prose and art come together to create this year’s experience. Excerpts from each piece were selected and woven together to compose a dialogue of letters, which we now deliver to you. Links to the individual pieces can be found on our Table of Contents page.
Poetry, prose and art come together to create this year’s experience. Excerpts from each piece were selected and woven together to compose a dialogue of letters, which we now deliver to you. Links to the individual pieces can be found on our Table of Contents page.
"To Whom It May Concern" transcript
"To whom it may concern."
"I tell her he’s not here and her features fall closer to the cleated welcome mat."
People Swell
"It’s 4:45 a.m. and I’m driving blindly to our secret place to watch the sun yawn for us."
Eighteen
"The sun spills in through the blinds, a hazy mess of morning."
Breakfast for Two
"As soon as you turn the corner, there I am: tattered clothes, scruffy beard, bloodshot eyes."
Roadblock
"It’s 6:50 a.m. We’re on our way to scrambled eggs, hash browns, and your hand on my leg."
Eighteen
"He rips his eyes from the shadow of his breakfast to the shadow on your face but misses the shadow behind you."
Houseflies
"The men are long and narrow. Their hands are black-gloved and greased with soot."
The Shogunate Mouth
"It resonated with the knowledge of identity that my father had imprinted in me with his heavily-accented voice throughout my life."
High School, Homework, and Hijabs
"She healed my skins and dried my lungs, lifting the panic at the touch of her voz. 'Hijo, tú eres una bendición.'"
Mom, I Am Not a Curse
"Provoke profanity and leers that linger long enough to keep her on her toes, to hunch back and bow head as if --"
"He held all power of God."
Wind Washed
"I flailed to catch my lifeless Spirit before it sunk into the marsh sands."
"I wept and fell into the arms of a sky veiled warmth. Upon her stars, she held me tightly."
Mom, I Am Not a Curse
"Yet I still stand there holding out my unwashed hand trying to make my rough face seem friendlier."
Roadblock
"She is coming by again to idle by the sleeves of records, all bluesy and smoking a K."
People Swell
"Wind washed brunette locks weigh her down, make her sway but never fall - for fables and fairytales, too many have grown accustomed to."
Wind Washed
"They are stuck and fearful with spears through their hips. He and the men were more like specters, ghouls under the thrall of the weapon. Thunder clapped and the ghoul in front sucked his teeth."
The Shogunate Mouth
"You mumble -"
"What a cliche"
" - to be young, in love, and living in a foreign place but still at home in your warmest embrace."
Romantics
"Sometimes she felt like she was expanding. She expanded when the laughter started to rise up within her, brewing in the base of her stomach and filling her before bubbling over the edge and transforming from a sensation into a sound."
All the Time
"It was silent and the only sounds were the faint noises of the street below and her steady breathing. It was one of those perfect moments where everything seems to stand still, just for a little while. We were having more of those lately."
Shift
"Life was made up of sometimes and other times."
All the Time
"And so, here I am. Soaking myself soggy in the tub, waiting to feel better."
Fireworks and Jelly
"It still flows gently; the water and the rock in the fog have a singular quality – like if nature were a corpse."
Fireflies
"Her lips are spider-webs and if ours touch they will never part."
People Swell
"There are in teeth the same carnage I find in the length of the barrel of the revolver."
The Shogunate Mouth
"It wasn’t supposed to go like this. At all. I was supposed to be deliriously giddy with happiness."
Fireworks and Jelly
"Habibti. Sweetie."
High School, Homework, and Hijabs
"But there was...other stuff. Secret stuff that I never told anyone about, Stuff that I don’t even let myself think about anymore because it nearly scares me to death."
Fireworks and Jelly
"Romantic is seems for the engine to scream while wispy hillsides cross my eyes."
A Notice to Airmen
"Pulling the cotton sheets over my face, I’m content to forget about things that happen in the dark."
Breakfast for Two
"I wanted to taste my clothes and have cotton in my teeth."
Schwap
"Putting pen to paper until my fingers were numb and the wooden pencil was imprinted into the side of my thumb."
High School, Homework, and Hijabs
"Intertwining shadows of our fingers and our shy lips, slowly falling deeper."
Romantics
"He is miserable and the men see it. They weep for him as he takes in their thumbnails."
The Shogunate Mouth
"Why didn’t I notice how beautiful she was more often?"
"I did what I was supposed to do, I learned from you and everybody else. I grew up. I became driven. I became focused. I became ambitious. I’m striving for perfection."
Shift
"Some nights she looked up at the vastness of the night sky, felt the breeze graze her cheeks, and every fiber of her seemed to be pulled towards it until she realized she could take on the world."
All the Time
"She rode past the creek in the midst of fireflies; she huffed, and blew grey onto their wings."
Fireflies
"Sometimes she felt like dancing. She danced in the living room with her father when she was five years old, and he scooped her up, twirled her around in the air, and was the first man to make her feel beautiful."
All the Time
"For sad irony lies when one takes to the skies and it’s there where he doesn’t feel free."
A Notice to Airmen
"Sincerely, The Kiln Project."