CHAZ CATRON

Aphrodesiaaa
Recent Work:



01. CONFESSIONS OF A SKULL MASK

[...] If you'd been sober, you might have found it symbolic. You can kiss somebody else's spouse and get away with it. You can kiss a member of the same sex with near impunity. You can give an incestuous kiss on the sly. You can tongue-kiss a dog or exchange raptures with lab rats.

But you can't kiss death without death kissing you back. Death is a passionate kisser. I bite your lips, chew your tongue, leave a little taste of blood in your mouth as a portent of things to come. If I were to kiss you between the legs, you'd see a little blood there too and think that your period had come early. But it wouldn't be your menses, lover. It would be your ruination, a death's head with your clitoris in its mouth.

Death is mad about you. Death loves you. Do you love me too? I'm not needy, but I enjoy intimacy-especially with you, darling. Go ahead.

Slip your face into mine. I like to feel your warm lips in my inert visage.

I like to feel your eyelashes tickling my empty old sockets. One day I'll slip my face into yours too, and then we'll experience another sort of intimacy. I'll be inside you, like a lover. I'll kiss you from the inside, and it will feel like catching a chill. You'll get goose bumps up your thighs and shivers down your spine. I'll whisk you to my wormy bed and we'll lie there nestled in each other's arms, or at least so long as you have arms.

And even then, when you are hideous dust, I will remain true. I am death and when I love you, it's forever.

And why shouldn't you love me back? I know that sometimes you fantasize about me. You lie in bed at night wondering how and when I will come, and what I'll look like when I do. Am I a knight in shining armor? A fiery dog of hell? Do I look like a vampire? A skeleton? A ghost?
You imagine me taking you into my arms, embracing you, comforting you. "There, there," I say, kissing your tears away. "I'll make those awful things go away. Life won't be a burden to you anymore. I promise."
    —from “Confessions of a Skull Mask” by Supervert
02. DELTA OF VENUS

“ ‘If you nourished your sexual life with all the excitements and adventures which love injects into sensuality, you would be the most potent man in the world. The source of sexual power is curiosity, passion. You are watching its little flame die of asphyxiation. Sex does not thrive on monotony. Without feeling, inventions, moods, no surprises in bed. Sex must be mixed with tears, laughts, words, promises, scenes, jealousy, envy, all the spices of fear, foregin travel, new faces, novels, stories, dreams, fantasies, music, dancing, opium, wine.
    “How much do you lose by this periscope at the tip of your sex, when you enjoy a harem of distinct and never-repeated wonders? No two hairs alike, but you will not let us waste words on the description of hair; no two odors, but if we expand on this you cry Cut the poetry. No two skins the same texture, and never the same light, temperature, shadows, never the same gesture; for a lover, when he is aroused by true love, can run the gamut of ceturies of love lore. What a range, what changes of age, what variations in maturity and innocence, perveristy, and art. . .’ ”
       —from the introduction to Delta of Venus,
Anaïs Nin.




03. LETTERS from an ANATOMICAL WAX MODEL

I’m quiet, one hand lightly touching my own jaw, the other in the cavity created by the space where my vital organs should be, They’re braided my hair. I’m supposed to be full of shit, wet with blood or cum, may saliva; the contents of my stomach gently swishing with every movement. Instead, I’m quiet. I look like I’m asleep.
   My organs are laid out beside me, handled with a loving care I find almost offensive. I’m empty, I’m angry—but then, I’ve been angry before, and where did that get me?
Laid out on a table; pretty, useless. I have nothing left to give of myself because it’s already been taken from me. My shiny, shiny organs are on display; I vomited my viscera and it was filled with clumps of hair, felt a panic attack in my bone marrow, and I apologized to you. How fucked up is that? I’m in the habit, it seems, of leaving little bits of myself everywhere. But then, can’t you see it? I wasn’t always like this. What will you do now that you’ve taken what was mine and put it on display for everyone to see?
Art is love. Did you hear me. Art is love. What can’t I love the bits scraped off, taken from me? I’m hard and waxy now, I can feel the weight of my insides. They’re started to turn, too—I am acutely aware of my spleen, my liver, my lungs. They’re filling up with rocks or soap, and a slight bruise of unbecoming is blooming across my stomach. They’ve taken my blood, too. 
You can examine my intestines. They’re longer than anyone could’ve expected, but loving detailed with veins and mass. Look, you can see one of the sculptors loved them so much that he tied of the end with a ribbon. 

04. NETTING re: PANDEMIC

    The space where something was; the space where things aren’t.
    It feels like the world hasn’t stopped falling in months, and I feel myself falling with it. And you know this: the world continues to collect debris like the Inner Harbor.
    I find myself trapped between the seemingly endless gaps between one and two, me and them, the sane and insane, outside and the safety of my bed.
    I can hold a net in my hands as something that is real—as something that feels familiar. I can weave a cord into something useful; the knots are the most important parts of the net. They are the strength points. I’m trying to slow down, I’m trying to create safety in the place where there is none.
    Nets give structure to the negative space, like a map or a photograph, clearly creating a place thats here and there. They also, in their matter-of-fact way, say, “You are not welcome here.” A dialectical dilemma; something that holds and cradles, and at the same time, something that traps and separates.