biddyfox | the republic

Imagine you are somebody who thinks very little of themselves. What if everyone was telling each other to be themselves. and the more everybody is true to themselves the less like you everybody is and everybody is just so excited not to be like you. I was so spineless, they say. So useless. I couldn't do any of the things I wanted to do, they say, and then they do something you'd never do. They lose the pop hooks. They lose the soft colors. They become sharp points and edges. They take things you'd admired from a distance and take them for themselves, barring you away. They tell you simply: "we are not barring you from entry. You can come in anytime you like." You come in. Nobody says you are unwelcome but you feel unwelcome. Some of the things you see there make you sickened and you look around and you're the only one and everybody is talking about how people who are sickened are weak and useless. You think okay, I guess I am weak and useless. You leave. That place did not feel safe but everywhere else feels much less safe. You find somewhere to hide. Maybe you have to be like them for them to let you in. Maybe you are in the larval state they describe having escaped from. You hum Steely Dan's "Josie" as you paint paintings in their image. You see them and hate yourself for making them because they are pale and hollow and fail to reflect you. None of them exists in it. None of you exists in it. It is a fragile ugliness which contains nothing. They take it from you and spread it among each other. They love it. They put it among the things they treasure, the things that sickened you and scared you. You are ashamed. At this point you breathe shame, bleed it. You burn what paintings remain yours, scatter their ashes to the winds. What if you were to lock yourself in a tower forever? You would be mostly alone, but you would be safe and free. You would not have to think about your own weakness. You climb into a pink castle and hide at its core. It is the Republic of Heaven. You are alone.