I’m a wild, warm animal,
conceived in Camp Lejeune where Marines are
trained to kill and Always Faithful.
My parents drank and bathed in the solvent- contaminated groundwater as TCE, PCE, and vinyl chloride formed my tiny vessels like map lines.
Benzene is my mother.
I have never been without her.
A few miles away, through the tall pines and past the intercostal waterway, I swam in the ocean - my body clean and new, baptized in the churning waves.
The Flood.
Mixed Media (watercolor, India ink, image transfers, cellophane, tissue paper, maps of Camp Lejeune, NC, markers, colored pencil, charcoal, gouache, and gold leaf) on Arches paper. 60” x 26”. 2020.