You Like To Be Sick
Womb/Wound
“You like being sick.” My oldest brother said to my mother. Ruefully aware that someone must be responsible for our tired, poor existence. My father did not escape judgement but was absent from most of our day to day lives. Mom bore the brunt of discontent.
My mother once told me that she was going to leave my father but found out she was pregnant with me and so stayed another two years. It was a hard thing to hear, incomprehensible to me as a young woman but, as an adult I do understand – love is often a burden. The great pain of existence is maybe giving your life to something or someone who doesn’t want it.
My mother gave us life, fed us, clothed us, worked a job at J.C. Penny’s for $2.08 an hour. She put Fischer Price toys on lay-a-way and paid a little every paycheck. She was once granted a small sum of money from a charity and took us to Penny’s to purchase clothes. My middle brother saw a battery-operated Superman toothbrush and desperately wanted it. Mom told him that he knew better than that and to put it back. Later, as she was checking out at the register, she looked at Denny and handed him a package of underwear, told him to take them back and to get the toothbrush. The choices she had to make break my heart a million times. Love is indeed a burden.
all photos: Airi Katsuta
You Like To Be Sick
Childhood toys, repurposed furniture, repurposed and reconstructed taxidermy form, sculptural objects, and childhood shoes covered in layers of paint and Aqua-Resin
Mesa Community College Gallery - Mesa, Arizona
2025