Zola Jesus

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zola jesus Nika Roza Danilova

James Marshall is under-appreciated. Didn’t you see him outshine Soccer Dog? Sometimes the mounds of dirt and snow look like miniature castles. Someone is reigning under there. And sometimes flakes fall like ash. Maybe this is the apocalypse. Maybe this is our apocalypse.

Did you see that one video of those girls doing the dances? That was always my favorite song. Not anymore.

I’m not kidding about James Marshall. He was so misunderstood in Vibrations. I heard he melted his large intestine. Who did this to him?

Are we stronger for living like this or weaker for letting it happen? Icewind hurts the face. There is a small ray of sun that beams down; they all stand inside of its womb, huddled together like little eggs. Just like animals. Survive first; get to know your neighbor second. Some fall short of the womb, would rather experience this moment in its crudity. When you refuse to escape the moment it becomes rich in itself. They are cold as fuck. But this is only in observation.

I think my love for James Marshall started with Laura Palmer, as all things do. There is that Giorgio Moroder song that goes “push it to the limit”. I consider those words every time the dean tells me to drop out of college.

Everyone is dying. Who is doing this to them? Maybe this is our apocalypse. Slow death. The sensation of ice on my bare feet makes me feel closer to something. In discomfort you succeed yourself, I think.

It is hard a lot. To live, breathe (I am a preemie and take big deep breaths or no breaths at all), walk down that sidewalk in a straight line, whatever. It is hard not to let yourself float away like that little red balloon. Sometimes I wonder to myself how any of us can let it continue. How I can continue. How I can keep pushing myself to the limit. But if you don’t learn yourself to fight instinct you’re reduced to an animal. I was a little too impulsive about James Marshall. He really has found a reasonable home in SciFi Originals. Maybe it is James Hurley I really love.

Love. I didn’t believe in love for a long time. It seemed to be a futile, earthly distraction from the Greater Purpose. Sexuality was one of those animal instincts I tried to challenge in order to do my part to evolve my species. But then: I fell in love. Like a total schmuck falling face first into one's own creation. I still try to remain strong and loyal to my fight against intrinsic desire; but whenever I look into his (you know, James Marshall’s) eyes I feel the strength collapse, myself snapping back into human form. If anything, I’ve become more driven towards the Greater Purpose, only now stronger and with a whole extra body to fight with. Level up.

When I was little I would lock myself in my kitchen pantry and sing songs about all the food on the shelves. It went on for hours. There was a whole verse dedicated to dried goji berries, and those ancient boxes of Jiffy mix that refused to let themselves be opened in all the ten years they sat there. That’s also where I practiced my arias when no one was home.

That song still haunts me. Those tiny knees marching up and down with the chorus, oh god, I can’t think about it.

By no choice of my own (love is never a choice but a force) I will be removing myself from the snow castles and wonderland noblesse for something far, more ironically, “chiller”. What will I struggle against once the ice has burned off the bottoms of my feet? Will there be anything left to overcome? Once the elements are no longer an issue possibly I will be left to overcome myself. Until then it’s big deep breaths in a wrapper of feather down. Oh, and James Marshall of course.