Lost - Texts by Katharina J. Ferner (Eng. Translation: Jon Cho-Polizzi)

The texture of the room: slate surfaces, contact resistant yet pliable, temperature regulation tottering between warm bodies and cold feet. Late autumn’s frozen dew, frost-studded breath. Reduced chance of survival, embryonic, cushioned with old newspaper.

1 Close Combat

Training for the daily struggle is mental muscle growth. One thinks only afterwards of testing the body’s limits. Murals painted by foot, daily routines turned on their heads. Church bells chiming out only on weekends, if still relevant at all—the day’s division into waking life and drea(l)ms does not suffice.

2 Grace

At mealtime fresh meat. Stripped down & plastic free. Skin stretching only in some places. Stretching the remaining slickness before the furrows of folds spread, staking their claim. A burned-out light bulb simulates sunlight. The fire isn’t there. Heat lurking somewhere in the bones. Ritual respite. Clock hands and feet following the lightless filament. Always turning and tossing and playing with the spinning threads, rolling up into a knot.

3 Lost

The papered wall has its way with me. The plumbing betrays foreign life, the rush of strangers flushing. Through the broken mortar people murmuring, lulling me to security, until I no longer see, forget that others, something more exists. Rock myself in regular distances, back and forth, scraping the walls. The sound is almost silent, in no wall to be found except my own: lullabywall.

4 The Predator

The bones protrude, the claws extend, bristled paws. The strained pearls paint black spots on the ceiling, depict a shabby dream. Bounded hues, borderline ingenious. Diversity in the nuances, dominatrixgrey, avengressgrey, shadowwhite etcetera. The ankle tarries before descent. It could just be an undetermined day. It could just be.

5 Vanishing Point

The course of the sun: poising points of warmth, flowing illumination. Beam me down. (Beat me .…) Seeking password inscriptions in the rough floorboards, mongered secrets, shimmering solutions. The crumbling lint awaits, endures the dust, shallow breath, shallow body, floundering. Flounders. Down. Meet me in the next life, Scotty, I’m a locust of the plague.

6 Temperature Rising

Unwind without neck injury, cautious touchdown on the shoulder blades, vertebrate. Gentle rebellion, relish the aftertaste. Which door would you choose? Old familiar questions for which no fitting answer applies, but what fits anyway. Inveterate carrier of comfort zones. There is no exit, broken latches, a knocking pleasure in the bones.

7 Showroom

Unfolded blotting paper lust, caterpillaring skyward from defeated nests. A thing of pleasure loitering in kinked bodies, gaps between the toes, fissures of skin, sentenced arches of ribcage. Outside to in and then there: a showroom. Cozy coating of grain, freshly polished glitterboards. Wait time of seven minutes. One, two. A chirp. Three, four. Etcetera.

„Lost is not merely a space, but also a condition. Inner loneliness. The forsakenness that summons those last sparks of strength to rise. At the lowest depth lies the old beginning, waiting like a mantle for days filled with doubts. Testing whether skin and muscle remain, whether the body can still play along. Ironing out uncertainties in one's head. Concentration. Collecting the rhythm of days and nights.“

Texts by Katharina J. Ferner

Eng. Translation: Jon Cho-Polizzi