Hypergraphia begins as shapes on a page, and it ends in a woods
of words, tangles of weeds and leaves and woods. Hypergraphia
can be an image, shapes on a page, shapes of the woods, screaming
of distorted green and black and blue, and shadows
that is first on the ground, then across the walls,
until you pin it down with the pen in your clawed hands.
Hypergraphia is what people do instead of screaming
What happened? In the woods
the shapes that form when the shadows
scatter themselves as ink on a page, across the walls
that are not there, and on those walls, hypergraphia
has stained, black and blue and red, my hands
which crawl across the walls
searching for the light that has cast these shadows.
Hypergraphia is not screaming.
as I wake up again to the memories of hands.
The walls bleed words, and shapes- my hands give into Hypergraphia.
The canvas is as tall as I am, and I am the woods.
I am inside Hypergraphia, the compulsive scribbling of shapes on the walls.
Scrawling, not screaming, What Happened? at the walls, in the woods
I am Hypergraphia, the compulsive drawing of the woods, of the hands
and the deep blue left by their shadows.
What happened? What do I say? I am not screaming.
Hypergraphia
is the compulsive drawing of hands-
of women in the fetal position, the shadows in the woods
are blue and green and brown and black, and starlight casts long shadows
across me, across the ground, and when I see them on the walls
I do not scream.
Hypergraphia
Is the drawing of faces obscured, in the woods, the shadow of hands in the woods,
of breasts and body picked clean on the floor of the woods? With shadows
overhead, across the walls, in the woods, with hands
branching out, clawing, growing through the walls.
I am Hypergraphia.
Hypergraphia is screaming.
Noë
This poem, “Hypergraphia”, is a companion piece to the illustration “ A Study in the Woods” and is about the mental fallout of an assault that happened in the woods and the development of hypergraphia as a coping mechanism