May Barn Door Gallery 2026

Upcoming
Written By HEATHER GEOFFREY

Thinning the Veil

Community Created and curated by Kai Marigold

May 2 - May 29

Opening Reception on Arts Night Out

Thinning the Veil is an ongoing art project exploring the intersections of grief using communal storytelling created by Kai Marigold. Community members have been invited to name and submit their own grief stories and experiences to the Thinning the Veil project, where Kai has then created individual visual art pieces based off of each submission. The written submissions and their corresponding art pieces are displayed together. All grief is welcome, including disenfranchised grief (grief that is often not openly recognized or supported). Spurred by the death of their sister, Kai was inspired to create this project with the mission of making space for communal storytelling and grief sharing, thinning the veil both between individuals and their own grief as well as between individuals and each other, while creating and holding space for the often unspoken elements of grief.

More about the project can be found at https://www.thinningtheveilproject.com/

IG@thinningtheveilproject

  • Kai Marigold (they/them) is an artist, author, and grief tender based in Western Massachusetts. Their art takes many forms- dance, performance art, photography, mixed media art, poetry, and more. They are also committed to their work as a grief tender, providing an array of individual and group grief exploration and support offerings.

    IG@kai.marigold

Below are the anonymously submitted written grief offerings from community members featured in this exhibit. They are arranged starting with materials immediately to the left upon entering the Barn Door Gallery and proceeding clockwise around the gallery space.

  • Between every jagged inhale

    And every whispered out breath

    Stands a heart 

    That has beat wildly

    As we have run together

    Palm centered in palm

    Toward mountains

    Vernal pools

    Meadows

    Dirt roads

    And toward the end

    Of life as it once was known.

    A step once taken

    Cannot be undone,

    And so 

    We are here.

    You and you

    And us

    And god as you understand it,

    And

    Another side.

  • Back

    On the porch

    Where 6 months ago

    Names read

    Eyes

    on your phone

    I called

    Space between

    Shrinking

    Your voice

    On my phone

    Vibrations

    You made

    Made you

    Walking

    On the highway

    You said.

    How far?

    Your body and soul

    Separate

    By what

    you did not possess

    Names are important

    But I wish

    your body

    Holding

    Each other

    Where did you go?

    I never thought

    You’d be a liar

    Years shared

    Void of a

    ‘Happy Birthday’

  • grief - a poem from my dark days, during the winter of 2021 i think

    making the good-for-me, healthy decisions feels harder and more complicated

    i’m hungry, my stomach growls

    and yet i have little desire to eat

    food that i know tastes good

    but have no appetite for

    nourishing my body

    what was once a simple, 

    pleasurable activity, 

    now takes significant effort most days

    i feel disoriented in my own body and mind.

    seeing friends, planning trips, going out, traveling, making commitments, leaving my mental and physical comfort zones to do things that used to be fun and that i yearn for – 

    i just don’t want to leave the house sometimes

    but people are often here and it’s not our space, our home. 

    i savor every moment of solitude here

    and it’s hard when i want to

    be alone at home but can’t be

    the long dark nights are cold

    i love the warmth of sharing a bed with T

    he’s a beautiful person

    he loves and respects me

    but i wonder if i lost the spark

    or if it was ever truly there

    maybe i was just wrapped up in the unexamined ease of his love

    and its alignment with the path 

    i expected of myself

    and what even is sex to me? for me?

    what do i want it to be?

    what ignites my desire, my curiosity, my pleasure?

    while the passion i feel for food and justice and community empowerment outshines my passion for love, romance, and family?

    will/would i ever be a good enough wife/mother with this imbalance of passion?

    i’m trying in sex and my sexuality

    and i feel pleasure

    but i don’t feel ignited

    or refreshed or released

    is sex just not that way for me?

    or is the type of sex i’m having not doing it for me?

    how do i know?


    the soul-grief of this period in my life feels immense

    it’s dark and i feel like i am navigating it blindly and keep bumping into things accidentally

    but so many of these bumps have led to unexpected connection and joy

    i don’t feel lost or alone, or grounded and whole

    i feel messily somewhere in the grey area 

    between the two

    grief

    letting go

    freedom


    this is the transformation of the darkness, coldness, stillness of winter

    so much is going on beneath the surface

    and yes the world is a turbulent place and i crave the stillness

    healing lives in the stillness, the silence, the solitude, the sleep


    so i stay focused on the present 

    and its feelings and sensations

    stepping back and forth on the 

    see-saw that is the balance of my input/rest and output/energy

    i settle into my breath

    and stay in the grey

  • I am grieving the physical loss of my beautiful son Daniel Amado. I know his spirit is with me but my heart is no longer the same. I am no longer the same. My grief like the ocean is calm and soft at times and other times battering me against the rocks relentlessly. The old me drowned the day he died and I am learning to accept and be gentle with this changeling I have become.

  • I have weathered every storm from the inside of my body. Each layer of fat has protected me from the coldness of the snow that falls. I hold in my heart the women I have met, who through the fear of fat thrust upon them by an unrelenting narrative of thinness have died, unprotected from the icicles.

  • I only get to see them in my dreams now

    Sometimes their body is frozen and grey, surrounded by endless shadow

    Sometimes we sit together near a warm fire, under an expanse of stars

  • Item description

  • I've lost so many friends to addiction and I feel like so many more are lost to the struggle. There's so many beautiful souls just trying to find there way! If only I could be a guide to the search. One day at a time we battle, struggle is just a part of life. Without the pain who would know what joy is?

  • Oh how I detest this slippery place. You're gone so long that my mind tries to think I never even knew you. The sense of you and you and you is shriveling. How will I talk my mind out of thinking I never knew you when I can't even smell you anymore?

  • Grief is supposed to come in stages. But I’m always stuck in devastation and outrage.

    Devastated and outraged to raise a child in a world that I don’t recognize. Devastated and outraged at myself that I’m not doing more to change it.

    Devastated and outraged to lose half a family, and listen to them grieve the relationship, but do nothing to repair it.

    Devastated and outraged to uproot my life for the man I love, while knowing it’s the right thing for my family.

    Devastated and outraged that the toxic ties I thought I cut keep creeping back into my life, wrapping themselves around the progress I’ve made and dragging me back.

    Devastated and outraged that this is my reality, because I’m doing everything right. I go to therapy. I do the exercises. I say the prayers. But I’m still so goddamn angry.

  • we come from broken homes 

    we're made of shattered things 

    a composite of pain and death 

    and all the love in between 

    i was in awe of you 

    you were in love with me 

    it was ten too many years 

    before i discovered what laid beneath 


    booze buffered both our hearts

    H shouldered all your pain 

    she was the only lady 

    that you ever brought over to my place 

    somehow we found our ways 

    into a gentler space 

    i was so ashamed of where i'd been that i would hide my face 


    when you came to my shows 

    and bragged about your cuz 

    pulled me out of my corner 

    to pose together cause 

    you knew it might be 

    the last opportunity 


    i will never ever forget your love

    I will never ever, ever understand your love

    i will never ever, ever, ever think i deserve your love 

    i will never ever, ever, ever, never let you leave my side again, cuz

  • The night my sister died, she crashed my mother’s car, driving without a license. That car is now my car. Just as the room that was once my room that became her room that she died in has held girlhood angst, cupped in overflowing hands, so has this car. Every time I lean on the horn, stick my middle finger up out of the window, or ricochet the tires off the curb, I think her spirit can sense it. We are tethered together through the scratches on the bumper and the tangles in our hair. Whether or not she can hear the music turned up to 48 or see me narrowly avoid the deer, there is a piece of her with me in the lights on the dashboard and the stains on the seats. I wish you were here to help me pick the bumper stickers and to ride with me down dusty roads and help me change my oil. Every time my car gets ticketed or towed I sense your mirthful spirit laughing. I love you my little reckless driver, and I will remember you forever. 

  • In 2023, at the age of 26, I lost the love of my life. We had been together for over a decade. I think of her throughout each and every day, and miss her so very much. She was beautiful, kind, and perfect in my eyes. I long for the family we should have had together, and worry that my family name will die out with my sad story, as there is nobody else to continue it.

  • Emptiness washed over me like light, like warmth, only the absence of.

    In the dream I had my cheek pressed against hers, begging her not to go. I wasn’t sure to where. Maybe the place you went.


    The house with a third floor with no windows, so dark I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. I had to find the door, but I couldn’t seem to orient myself in space or time when I felt the carpet disappear beneath my feet. Only nothing existed around me and within me and I came to understand I was, and was made up of nothing, as well. Nothing dissipated into me until we were an indistinguishable absence, an antithesis of being. 

    Interspersed in the places between nothing were bundles of energy clustered in little balls of light. I allowed myself to navigate this space in order to look for you. I was beginning to forget the sound of your voice.


    I believed myself to be in a room with no door; at least, if there was a door, I could not find it. In the center, on a small round table sat a yellow rotary phone. I did not know any phone numbers so I dialed the operator and it began to play sports radio. I hung up the phone, then picked it up again and considered strangling myself with the cord, but my fingers kept falling right through it. I called for you, but dead people cannot hear, and so you did not answer.


    There was a man crouched under the kitchen chair you normally sat in. I couldn’t see his eyes but I could see his mouth and I was aware he was waiting for me to die, too. He extended one gnarled finger in my direction and let a string of inky black drool slide down his lip. It was the kitchen of my childhood home. Lipstick red walls and dark brown wood.  Heads of dead animals mounted the walls like silent sentinels. In the center, a great moose head wearing a child’s plastic tiara. I love you, said the moose. If you loved me, you would let me do this.


    The red on the walls began bleeding onto the floor, began puddling at my feet. The man under the chair lunged to lap at it like a dog. I was no longer sure if the floor was sinking or the red was rising, but I found myself washed away in its tide, struggling to keep my head above the surface. I thought of you, dead in your bed, and attempted to swim. 

    Emptiness washed over me like light, like warmth, only the absence of.

  • I came out as trans to my grandma recently, which went well, but now I’m thinking of my grandpa and the thought crossing my mind is how I’ll never get to come out to him. He died a few months ago after half a decade of slowly losing his memory. Some might say he wasn’t there, his true self, for the past 5 years, but he always carried a part of himself - his silliness. He was one of the silliest people in my life, always cracking light hearted jokes whenever he found the right moment to; I think he was most known for his sense of humor and being able to make you laugh. I really liked that about him and so did everyone else who appreciated and loved him.

    It feels like I shouldn’t feel so bad that I won’t get to come out to him because I know there’s nothing I can do about that, but I think it’s heavy to me; I really think he would’ve accepted me. No one in my life has cast me to the side for being myself, I’ve got supportive family and friends, but it’d be nice to have his support too. It would’ve been nice if he could’ve seen me flourish in my skin. There’s a chance he did see me or that he’s in heaven looking down, but I don’t think there’s any way for me to know.

    I hope he knows though, and I hope he knows that he has a granddaughter that misses him dearly.

  • Your room was so small that you had barely managed to squeeze the fold-out table next to your bed. Atop it, sat a single lit candle and two bowls of tomato soup, each on a plate with a slice of toasted french bread. Your harsh overhead light was off, replaced with the dim glow of fairy lights strung around the room.

            “You remembered!” I gushed, throwing my arms around you. I could tell the soup was your mother’s recipe. I’d eaten it during one of my first dinners with your family. I told her I loved it and you said you would have to make it for me sometime.

            “Happy four months,” you smiled. Your face was bright and your brown scruffy hair fell over your eyes.

            You had seemed particularly giddy when you opened the front door for me that night, and even more so when you clutched my hand and led me downstairs, revealing the surprise. Now, sitting down to eat, it was as good as I remembered.  

            “I love you,” I said.

            “Love you more. There’s more soup upstairs when you want it,” you winked.

            When we had sex that night-- after the table was cleared and dishes washed-- you said and did everything right. Afterward, you held me, my head resting on your chest as we fell asleep.

    51.1% of female victims of rape reported being raped by an intimate partner (NSVRC). Rape crisis activist Katie Russell says “people can find it very difficult to name, say, their partner, their former partner, perhaps the co-parent of their children, as a rapist. It’s difficult to do that publicly, but it’s difficult to do that even privately, and to yourself” (Ro 2018).

     I can’t recall the exact moment the unraveling began, but it was long after you made me tomato soup. It was after you ended your habit of riding the blue line train home with me, even though it took you an hour and a half out of your way. It was after that night we sat in my hometown on the ridge and looked at the sky. You were from the city; you weren’t used to seeing the constellations so clearly.

    “You gave me the stars!” you said.

    It was after we went to Ikea and talked about how we would decorate our home together. Or perhaps it wasn’t. My memory evades me when I think of you, and images, in the beginning, are soft and light and loving.

    These pictures begin to twist after our first year together. I remember feeling less smart, less funny, less beautiful. I was seventeen when the doctors suspected I had endometriosis-- a disease that left my uterine lining stuck in place, decorating my reproductive organs.

    Seventeen. That’s how old I was when I wrote you your song.

    We’re seventeen but wishing older

    It’s six o’clock and I feel warmer

    A kind and loving list of thought to unwind

    Oh, Honey, you’ve been on my mind

    You loved the song. When I sang it to you over the phone, you cried. But, I wrote that before the endometriosis got bad. Before sex hurt. When we had to stop in the middle of it (as I felt like a sharp knife was cutting me open), you always looked disappointed.

    “I know it’s not your fault,” you would say. It didn’t matter, because I couldn’t give you something I knew you wanted. It was something I felt was my job to give. It was after I realized this that I didn’t mention the pain. Instead, I cried quietly into the pillow and hoped it would be over soon; you didn’t notice. I made myself a schedule. If I do it this time, I don’t have to do it next time, I thought.

    This wasn’t supposed to be a letter to you. It didn’t start that way. The more I wrote, the more the word “you” popped up on the page instead of “he,” begging me to change the perspective. So, I did.

    Although each one year apart, there are two photos from our proms that look nearly identical. In the first, I wear a cream dress with tiny yellow flowers. In the next, my dress is black and the flowers are pink. In both, you are underdressed for the occasion, and in both, you lift me up. My hands wrap around your shoulders, and yours scoop me up around my back and below my legs. My smile looks the same in each photo-- my mouth agape from laughing. In the first, your smile is the same, but in the second it is barely visible. Could you feel how the time had worn us down?

    When it happened, I was sick. I took my temperature: 100.7. When I told you, a heavy silence hung in the air.

    “This always happens,” you sighed, falling back on the bed. It was true. Often times, when it seemed like the possibility of sex was on the table, I began to feel sick. I wonder if my body had been trying to tell me something for a very long time. The sickness happened when we were still together, and it happened now: two years later. I spent so long shaking it off; you weren’t the type to hurt me.

    “Based on the research, men who rape women are not that different than men who don’t rape women” (Ro 2018).

            You and I were peer educators through a local domestic violence shelter.

    “We define consent as a constant, enthusiastic yes, in a space where it is also safe to say no,” I presented in front of the high school class, while you stood beside me, holding the chalk. “Can you guys think of a reason it might not be safe to say no?”

    I called on raised hands, and you wrote down the answers on the board.

    “Physical force,” someone said.

    “Definitely,” I agreed.

    “Threats,” suggested another student.

    “Right.”

    “Emotional pressure,” a girl chimed in.

    “That’s a really good one. I want to point out that when I ask what an unsafe space is, we might automatically think about physical threats to our safety. It’s important we keep in mind that you can coerce someone with emotional threats too,” I said, and you nodded.

    It didn’t matter to you that I was sick. Even before I took my temperature, I told you I didn’t feel well, but that didn’t stop you from trying to kiss me, to grab me, and to change my mind. Only minutes passed in between each new attempt. It was the same after the cold shower you begged me to take, when I searched through the bathroom cabinets and found the thermometer.  

    “It might make you feel better,” you said.

    “I don’t even think I’m capable right now,”

    “I think you’re underestimating what you’re capable of,” you laughed, but I knew it wasn’t a joke.

    I tried to kiss you back for a minute, but I couldn’t breathe. I pulled away.

    “I don’t want to,” I said.

    Your hands explored and I turned around.

    “Not right now,” I said.

    You tugged me towards you.

            “No,” I said. “No.”

    We bought Gatorade and I drank it. You made me soup. It was not your mother’s recipe, but instead, canned chicken noodle. This soup didn’t say you loved me; it said you wanted something. You tried again. And again. And Again. In the morning, it was the same way. When I dropped you off that day, you didn’t kiss me goodbye.

    A List of Funny Pet Names You Gave Me (Last Dated January 15th, 2016)

    1. Goob gob

    2. Goober

    3. Beautiful bean

    4. Bub

    5. Bubby

    6. Starry eyed alien goober

    7. Little bean

    8. Pious alien-simulation goddess

    9. Baba

    10. Boo bop

    11. Bean

    12. Little chipmunk

    13. Little lamb

    14. Goblin

    15. Little sweet potato

    16. Sweet pea

    17. Love bug

    18. Sweet lady

    19. My pretty little swamp creature

    20. Little rabbit

    21. Beautiful little duckling

    22. Green bean

    23. Cutie

    24. Precious egg

    25. Goon

    27. My darling little succulent

    28. Bright young being

    29. Lovely

    30. Gooby

    31. Sweetie

    32. Oceanic starry soulful lover

    33. Bubbly

    34. Booble

    35. Mama pajama

    In Arizona, I took a women’s songwriting class.

    “Pick a moment,” the teacher said, “that is significant in some way. It could be a moment of pure joy or pure sadness. Just pick a moment, and let the rest come from that.”

    I found a quiet place in the sun and sat with my ukulele. I scribbled down chords and lyrics. In my next class, I pulled out my notebook and did the same. Every time inspiration beckoned, I scrawled until I was done. The song I wrote for you now was different. I was not seventeen anymore.

    How did we get here? I don’t know

    You used to write me birthday cards

    Giving my limbs a quiet glow

    Now you’re taking my solace in the dark

    How did we get here? I can’t say

    In your arms, I was a child

    I gave you stars I showed the way

    You took my promise in the light

    How did we get here? At some point, you started seeing me not as someone to love, but as someone who had something to give you. For how long did you resent me? Our ties are so frayed now, so tarnished, and so burned.

    I was drinking wine and reading a book. I felt so deeply relaxed until I thought about you-- how you could call at any moment and break the silence. I hadn’t seen you since it happened, and we had barely sent one message back and forth. That night, I blocked your number, but my chest still told me to worry-- to be on high alert. You were gone but you weren’t gone.

    The time when I was sick wasn’t the only time you tried to coerce me. Just before that, I had told you no and, for a while, you didn’t listen.

    “Sorry,” you said. “I know I’m being pressuring right now. I’ll stop.”

    That night, you did. The next night I saw you, I was sick, and that was not enough to stop you. Connecting those two nights was one of the hardest parts. You knew what you were doing. Still, I latch on to the night I had the flu because at least it feels concrete. He should have listened; I was sick. I had a reason to say no. Not wanting it simply wasn’t enough. A thermometer couldn’t lie.

            “Find a way to resolve the song,” my Arizona teacher said, and I did. In the last chorus, I changed one lyric, although I’m still having trouble believing the message.        

    How did we get here? I can’t say

    In your arms, I was a child

    I gave you stars I showed the way

    And in living, I’ve survived

    Sources:

    Ro, Christine. “Why Most Rape Victims Never Acknowledge What Happened.” BBC Future, BBC, 6 Nov. 2018, www.bbc.com/future/article/20181102-why-dont-rape-and-sexual-assault-victims-come-forward.

    “Statistics.” National Sexual Violence Resource Center, www.nsvrc.org/statistics.

  • I hate how I feel the need to go back through my journal and edit it, organize it. To cut out the fluff and bullshit, to make it as easy to read as possible. It’s not my fault. 

    I wish it could just be more concise from the start..but it’s journaling. It’s literally meant to be whatever the fuck you want. My journal should be allowed to be a fucking first draft. No one's journal should need to be revised to be a perfect final draft. But mine does. The first draft cannot be the final draft. I don’t have that luxury. The stakes are too high. I can’t afford to simply write freely, without the objective of finding conclusions, finding clarity. That freedom was stolen from me. It’s not my fault I obsess over it. I’ve had no choice. I never wanted this. 

    I have to document. I need to know the truth. I need facts, timelines. I need a reference. I need evidence that my reality, reliability, credibility, competency— everything, is real. I didn’t make it up. I'm not crazy.

    I want to remember more than the facts. I want the realizations, the insights, I want to remember myself. I’ve already forgotten so much. It’s like deep in me I know I can’t forget any more. It’s like I’ve had this sneaking suspicion that I’ve been losing myself. And I’ve tried to leave breadcrumbs to find my way back. It’s devastating how much of myself I have lost. It’s devastating that I didn’t know it. But I had no choice. It’s not my fault. I never wanted it to be like this. I never wanted to be like this. I can't do it anymore. I won't question myself anymore. I'm done with breadcrumbs. 

    I want to scream. I want to cry. I want to obliterate.

  • Feral. The word rips though me - reminds me it was once a name, will always be one. “I’m gonna die in a way that makes me gay famous,” she said. Now her name is in the Transgender History Books. “And I’ll haunt you forever.” So far so good. Long Live Our Troll Queen.

HEATHER GEOFFREY
Next

May Split Level Gallery 2026