SUPREME-O, 2023
The following is the text portion of a multi-piece artwork called SUPREME-O, which was on view at The Brand Library in Glendale for their Brand 51: Works on Paper exhibition from July 8 through September 1. More detail about the complete artwork can be found here and in the exhibition space. The entire text is the property of Jackie DesForges and may not be used without permission.
SUPREME O: A MANIFESTO
A human person comes into being at abortion:
a body adopting itself.
We enact a critical point to achieve “viability”: i.e, the ability to survive outside the Court.
“Potential life” is solar-like:
controlling the time, the years.
From a distance it is bright! But
to stare too long blinds the eye to now,
places an “undue burden” on a woman’s right
to have an I.
No.
New legislature:
We expressly overrule the womb as the only source of life.
It is time to heed the plants:
seduce the sun beams;
fingernails to form, not to tear.
Gestation as one’s own measure of plurality.
Or: we consider “the language of the instrument.”
The first, fourth, fifth: some combination of these,
played as a pulse,
giving story to stillness.
A battery charging.
Adoption.
Forgiveness.
“Liberty” is a capacious term.
As Lincoln once said: “We all declare for liberty, but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.”
We mean ardent liberty.
Long due liberty.
No “ordered liberty.” Zero. None.
Beware the wave of our “quickening;” i.e.
the first felt movement of a woman animated by her body described
as a “great crime” (homicide or laughter?)
A woman sentenced to never:
Barbarous,
pernicious,
against the peace,
a woman,
a woman,
a person,
one person,
A PERSON
A WOMAN WILD WITH INTENT,
GUILTY OF PERFORMING AIM
A WOMAN DESTROYING THE ORIGINAL GROUND, DRAWING A LIFE ENDOWED WITH LIFE
A DIFFERENT EXPLANATION OF A
SEPARATE AND INDEPENDENT
EXISTENCE
A person
on purpose.
Like pregnancy,
abortion can create
(or preserve)
the life
of the mother.
Mother as root
as attitude
as answer
as majority
as teen
as time
as destination
as advocate
as Jane
as scholar
as author
as ship
as before, after
as mental
as mate
as motive
as body
as a whole.
One makes a mother of one’s own book.
We make holy the belief that abortion is
profound,
moral,
spiritual.
Integral,
entrenched,
intimate.
“At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”
The mystery of a woman who wants a potential life.
Should we solve it?
Autonomy.
One’s “concept of existence.”
A sharp and potent “mine.”
The outer limits of age.
Desire un-married to cost.
Anonymous reasons.
All the verbs of decision.
Parties and passing down.
Wisdom richer than can be found in any panel of judges.
Sometimes settled.
The value of having gone astray.
Willing to reconsider precedents.
The demise of fixing the weight.
Bread.
Salute the flag of nothing.
Footsteps in favor of nature.
Disrupt concrete.
Betray commitment to reason.
Do not concern moral and social importance.
Describe both sides.
Seek a new coast.
Remove ass from the democratic process.
Usurp/disavow/possess.
The opinion is not the narrative.
The question before anything.
“Never” has never been plausibly explained.
Plurality abandons framework.
Scheme an exceptional version of “during.”
The potentiality of the human brainchild.
“Viability” should transform paragraphs and civilizations.
“Illicit sexual conduct.”
Wealth treated as destruction.
Play the Court.
Two very different meanings of “interference.”
Something to do with the “potential life” of legislative bodies.
Draw lines that look like a body, not like mortality.
The compelling capability of a meaningful lie.
The point at which interest becomes philosophy.
The attributes of those afflicted with merit.
The view of personhood can never be from outside.
Men made raw.
Men who mend.
Respect.
A second life within this part that is inherently mine.
No dictionary burdens.
Ambiguity.
So.
The Court needs to know:
our controlling opinion,
applying the same test,
reached the opposite result.
We reject the cost.
Our interpretation of this Court’s experience
has confirmed that the “standard”
was not built to last.
The Court has proved to be impossible to parent.
The Court has proven to undermine, not advance;
to distort support;
to ignore and disregard.
This Court claims to contend for the greater good
but we want the greatest.
We exceed the scope of the Constitution.
We cannot be subject to Force or Will.
Our sole authority is now at hand.
We get up and move for all the women who never
got out of the alley
that might have led
to a potential life.
A potent life.
It is so ordered.