A Swim at the Cecil Hotel by Val Dering Rojas
~for Elisa Lam
Because I was thinking of my own soul, how a scientist had said
it had weight, I wondered what, when it leaves the body, it displaces--
how a girl can check-in to a hotel instead of staying out
on the skid of streets, how she can fill space in a room for five nights
only to be dislocated from the emptiness she displaced--
physicists call it vector; to write it mathematically, draw an arrow
from girl in elevator to a thousand gallon water tank--
minus 21 grams, point seven five, or three quarters of an ounce--
then watch how a soul escapes in the sunshine stupefaction
of an open cistern, the tower of tepid water she was in.
And should these things comfort me against what I despise
about dying? (That it will be a darkened night, a particular silence--
space of echo and sigh, the loneliness of a ten foot tall,
4.5 foot wide steel drum.)
Or should I think of it as the solution to an equation-- that maybe
death isn't a leaping out, but a jumping in.
Note: On February 19, 2013, the body of missing Vancouver student, Elisa Lam, was discovered floating in the rooftop water tank of the notoriously haunted Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles, California, after guests complained about problems with the water supply. Her death remains unsolved.
Because I was thinking of my own soul, how a scientist had said
it had weight, I wondered what, when it leaves the body, it displaces--
how a girl can check-in to a hotel instead of staying out
on the skid of streets, how she can fill space in a room for five nights
only to be dislocated from the emptiness she displaced--
physicists call it vector; to write it mathematically, draw an arrow
from girl in elevator to a thousand gallon water tank--
minus 21 grams, point seven five, or three quarters of an ounce--
then watch how a soul escapes in the sunshine stupefaction
of an open cistern, the tower of tepid water she was in.
And should these things comfort me against what I despise
about dying? (That it will be a darkened night, a particular silence--
space of echo and sigh, the loneliness of a ten foot tall,
4.5 foot wide steel drum.)
Or should I think of it as the solution to an equation-- that maybe
death isn't a leaping out, but a jumping in.
Note: On February 19, 2013, the body of missing Vancouver student, Elisa Lam, was discovered floating in the rooftop water tank of the notoriously haunted Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles, California, after guests complained about problems with the water supply. Her death remains unsolved.
Val Dering Rojas is a Los Angeles based poet and artist who has also studied Addiction and Recovery Counseling and Psychology. Her poetry and short fiction has appeared in The Rumpus, Right Hand Pointing, Connotation Press, Arsenic Lobster, SWWIM and Uppagus among others. She is also the author of the chapbooks TEN (Dancing Girl Press) and Waspfish, a semi-finalist for the Glass Lyre Press 2016 Kithara Prize. When not writing, Val is usually obsessing over Austria vs Amsterdam, aliens vs angels, and her Dutch vs German language apps, though Spanish really should be her concentration.
Julia Forrest is a Brooklyn based artist. She works strictly in film and prints in a darkroom she built within her apartment. Her own art has always been her top priority in life and in this digital world, she will continue to work with old processing. Anything can simply be done in photoshop, she prefers to take the camera, a tool of showing reality, and experiment with what she can do in front of the lens. Julia is currently working as a teaching artist at the Brooklyn Museum, Medgar Evers College, USDAN Art Center and Lehigh University. As an instructor, she thinks it is important to understand that a person can constantly stretch and push the boundaries of their ideas with whatever medium of art they choose. Her goal is for her audience to not only enjoy learning about photography, but to see the world in an entirely new way and continue to develop a future interest in the arts. You can find her at her WEBSITE and on instagram: @Juliajuliaajuliaa