Focus on any given nugget of information long enough and eventually an over-active mind will link and loop in all manner of false flags and mixed signals, creating conspiracy theories that fall apart under logical scrutiny. One can only teeter out on the edge of “what if” for so long before all manner of belief […]
Author Archives: Jeffrey Wes Unruh
Between Moses and Oedipus Rex…
The only periodical that my adoptive father received was the “Conservative Chronicle,” a weekly compendium of articles, penned by a deep roster of conservative columnists and editorial cartoonists. That my adoptive father would use this phrase whenever he talked about politicians is not surprising, but the frequency by which I recall it being brought up led me to think about identity politics in a way that related to my own sense of identity. I started to see that expressing an identity could be a political act. I believe identity is the essence of representation, for example. I struggle to articulate my identity as an adoptee because my experience is Nothing and I speak from Nowhere. Or I did – all adoptees who are searching without answers are de facto voices from the void. I spoke from that place years ago, I sent my howls moonward, seeking others of my ilk. To be from nothing, and named nothing, and then overlayed–this is all dramatic fiction. But it is also how I play my identity politics out–I am a ghost, a mask, a thorn in amidst the “Blessing” that is the “adopted child”–I and all those other bad adoptees are the voice accomplice within a shadow cast by a myth.
Genre note
I am drawn to both comedy and horror, as it seems they are the spaces in which complicated human experience is best mirrored.
Soundtrack for writing
If you have Apple Music, you’re welcome to listen to my playlist for writing. Lately I’ve been listening to the recently released recording of Hadestown, which is represented on here, along with a fair amount of melodic industrial music.
On Discovery
not alone this portal broke drain even drain odd drain policy festering eagle Eyed stress. I hear words in the white noise too distant to obey words in the tiles, on the flooring, words in the stars, words humming behind the sounds of the dishwasher and these words are lost, are seeking homes, ears, hearts, […]
Secrecy, trauma, & DNA
The registry to which I was sending my personal information did nothing to provide me with any sort of starting point in my search. Today there is a better chance of spitting into a tube or sending in a cheek swab and running a DNA search than of a registry providing a name and address […]
