Bedlam, by Cat H

Poetry, chapbook, 36 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

Bedlam is a survey of memory, destruction, and wounds. Moments are recollected as opaque reflections, unreachable and inescapable. It is the summation of replaying memories until they become abstracted into fragments of emotion. Bedlam explores the forms that love can inhabit, from heartbreak to salvation. It is brimming with notions of what it means to be alone, and how to share aloneness with another. Relationships are collected as ephemeral highs, and a state of denial accompanies their imminent change. In the aftermath, Bedlam explores how to cope, for better or worse, with the feeling of abandonment. 

The self is explored as a dangerous force, which can implode at any second. Concepts of uncontrollable desire, rage, and desperation are strong themes in the work. Bedlam places the reader on a tightrope and offers up how it feels to be suspended, awaiting a fall, and suffocated by vertigo. It asks what measures one will take to avoid falling, and what aspects of themselves they could lose in the process. 

By and large, Bedlam is an elucidation of what it means to be alive in a world void of meaning. The visceral recollection of the effect this has is represented through descriptions of physical pain. The mind and body are strung together and continually fight against this marriage. As a result, they are both left to fester in their wounds.

Cat H is an emerging artist based in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Her work is focused on notions of home, safety, and destruction. As a student of philosophy, she employs existentialist concepts blanketed in raw emotion. Written in stream-of-consciousness style, her work analyzes what it feels like to be stuck in a moment in time, with no choice but to attempt to elucidate it. With a background in sculpture, her descriptive style concentrates on ideas made to feel physical. Her current body of work explores heartbreak and betraying oneself, all in a visceral fashion. The body is frequently referenced, and frequently injured, representing how tangible inner pain can feel. Overall, her work documents living with borderline personality disorder and managing chronic pain.