The DAA

365 Days of Creativity

day ninety one

the DAA

Have you ever heard of a damage addiction?
Also known as a mutilation vortex
A dramatic chain
The circle of self-destruction

Have you ever met someone so totally addicted to their own problems, they are beyond the reach of help?

Take for example, someone who tells you they have a secret, but they never tell you what the secret is. Though whatever it is, it's terrible, it makes them tremble and glisten and stutter out "I can't." as a refusal to letting you in. And you get this feeling that it's not for your sake, but for theirs. Because they need this secret. It makes them mysterious. Interesting. Special. This secret is the only thing they have.

Yes, you've met someone like this. Someone in love with never being loved. The princess in the tower who cuts down her own rope. The boy in the well who never calls for help. The girl who leaves behind drawings on her desk at school, but never explains what the graphite tears mean. Oh yes, we've met them, lived with them, tried to save them. But they will not be saved.

They can, but they choose pain over pleasure. Their pain is their pleasure.

Now imagine how hard it must be to always be so successfully misunderstood. No one will ever congratulate your depressive achievements. You're sweet isolation is bitterly unrewarding. Maybe once in a while it would be nice to hear how well you're doing at keeping everyone at bay. At letting the audience hang in the dark while they wonder at your dramatics from a far. All you need sometimes is an appreciative nod, or a pat on the back. 

That's where DAA comes in.

Damage Addicts Anonymous.

This is where every wednesday, all the cutters and bulimics, dumpees and artists (oh god, the misunderstood artists!), the narcissists and rape victims come to debate on regurgitation tactics and where to cut themselves, (where is too obvious and where is too risky). The narcissists discuss how to simultaneously keep a conversation on themselves while letting others know their lack of worth.

Meetings start at seven and can run all night.

Lucy, she's been eating lunch alone since she was fifteen, and tasting it twice since she was sixteen.

Meet Sid, he wears his sleeves rolled up until people ask about his scars. He wears his hair over his face to hide his smile when they do.

Charles is an online poet. Only he posts his work half-finished so people think he's self-loathing and gives up on everything. Charles doesn't even like poetry.

Genevieve has been dumped twenty-six times this year, four of which were caused by the abortions.

Jacob loosens the bolts on his bike to get in harsh wipe outs. He reopens his wounds so they leave disfiguring scars.

"Hi I'm Phil, I've been a damage addict for thirteen years. I've burned down three houses, all of which were mine."

"My name is Cherry and I always bet on the sure thing to lose."

"I'm Dylan and I've tried drowning in the ocean four times. I don't want to be saved."

"Hey, Mike here. I've jumped off the wagon again. I'm drunk, and I don't want to be saved."

"It's my first time here after my second time being raped. I didn't call for help."

Meet Megan, an orphaned girl who started DAA when she was eighteen. Megan was not born an orphan - no one is- but she became one just weeks after leaving the womb. It turns out shotgun weddings don't usually hold up past the accident's first birthday. Every time the orphanage would set up an interview for her, Megan would sabotage the meeting. She would spit or cry or insult the lovely, lonely couple.

The orphanage sent her to a private school in the next city where being abandoned made her unique. Kids looked at her with wonder, boys tried to save her and girls tried to comfort her. Megan realized if she ever got adopted, all of this attention would stop. So she kept spitting and crying her way out of being loved.

Once she graduated from school she realized she was so alone, there was no one to be amazed by her pain. So she posted a notice at the community center for 'Damage Addicts Anonymous; a place where we may be alone, together'.

The first week brought in only two. One woman who mistook the hall for the bathroom, and Lyle, a twenty-eight year old who had been faking seizures for over a decade.

Two people this fragmented often think the other can complete them, no matter how rough the fit of the pieces. The couple fell into a dangerous love, the kind where all of your messy weights find a precarious place of balance together. The rocky, turbulent seas of their relationship were calmed only by the gravity of the group they lead. Two tornadoes tied together with a leash. 

Megan and Lyle, the earthquakes that rocked a coastal city to its knees.

The wounded wolves that circled the edges, never accepting assistance, never giving anyone more than a beautiful view of a terrible creature.

Megan and Lyle, they loved each other because their conditions were complementary. Lyle was abusive because of his constant experiments with different medication, and Megan used makeup to make her bruises look, not better, but worse.

Every meeting started with Megan giving her own testimony. As she talked about how her old orphanage Director urged her to leave Lyle, a gloating glower would hang on her face, a satisfied smile sneaking over her cheeks. "The Director says I'm losing control. She offered to pay for my plane ticket home this week." Megan's grin cracks open her scabbed lips. "Mommy thinks I'm broken."

This is when she blows a kiss to Lyle at the back of the room.

Megan and Lyle

sitting in a tree

K-I-L-L-I-N-G

first comes drugs,

then miscarriage

then comes the day they jumped off a bridge

Can you tell she used to be beautiful?

It's hard through all of the bone.

The only reason they died together

Is because they lived alone.

The Vanishing

365 Days of Creativity

day ninety

The Vanishing

I am not on drugs.

I am not insane.

I am not imaginary.

These three sentences I must repeat to myself constantly, for it is only my believing them that makes them true.

It was fun at first, when everyone disappeared. I was free to do anything. I drove down the streets backwards, walked into banks empty handed, and left a millionaire. I had access to the finest kitchens in the world, I could touch every piece of art and smoke every rare cigar. I practiced archery in Target, sniped out mannequins from the Space Needle. Wearing Gucci & Prada I walked through the subways and swam in golden fountains.

The activities were endless. My sanity was not.

What is a millionaire with no one to praise them? What is art with no one to discuss it? And kitchens so grand require a professional chef to do them justice. My carpaccio usually ended up a sad, wilted bowl of mac&cheese.

I quickly noticed the world had been built to entertain billions of people at a time, but to keep one man satisfied was his own responsibility, something I had never learned. I was craving more, as I had always been taught to do. But here, when I had it all at once, I realized how little it actually was.

Restless, wandering, and utterly isolated. I shuffled down the lanes of little lemon villas. Honey coloured houses covered in half-formed dew. Bright-brick walls being hugged by vines of icy ivy. Walking under a trellised archway, a petal shook loose, brushing my cheek in the only caress I hadn't caused in months.

The front door opened easily, welcoming as any home had ever been. This wasn't a house I knew before the Vanishing, but I knew all of the buildings now. The photo albums were still right where I left them, next to the open bottle of a 50 year old Dalmore Scotch that I would have never even seen in another lifetime. How I wished for that lifetime now.

Smiling birthdays, weddings, missing front teeth, finger paintings, prestigious schools, sports games, roller coaster snapshots, tropical vacations, grecian honeymoons, people in images upon memories are the only proof this family had ever existed.

I started carrying a polaroid camera with me. I took a Ducati I could never afford and headed cross-country. 

Here's me at the White House.

This is me at Niagara Falls.

Oh, this one's of me in Central Park.

Little square pieces of proof that I had been there. I left each photo hung up on a wall. Tiny snapshots that said "I was here!" to absolutely no one.

If no one was around to recognize that I existed, did I?

This one's of me on the Vegas Strip.

If no one could see me, was I really here?

Here I am on the Hollywood walk of fame.

If I couldn't speak to anyone, could I even speak at all? Why would I?

Did you see the one of me on fire?

If I am the only one left living, is there anyone living at all?

This is me as Schrodinger's cat.

Am I high? Is the world here anymore? Did I simply die and create this space in the afterlife? Am I dreaming? Is this entire place just images projected onto closed eyelids? Though even if my eyes are open, they are still just images projected onto me. Either externally or internally, this is reality because I choose it to be. I am not dead because I choose not to be. I am alone because...

You cannot control everything.

I sound crazy to you maybe. But who are you really, other than a projection? And an image cannot judge me.

I am not on drugs.

I am not insane.

I am not imaginary.


I am not on drugs.

I am not insane.

I am not imaginary.


I am not...

I am...

This is the Sound My Mind Makes.

I hate commitment but I'm addicted to tattoos.

I'm simultaneously narcissistic and self conscious.

I do not judge individuals, but when viewed as a group I can hate on a grand scale.

I never, ever feel bad for the 'tragedies' in the news, whether it be a tsunami or a suicide.

Even when I'm outwardly excited for something I'm always inwardly expecting it to fail.

I check out women more than I check out men, and not just from jealousy.

I think stripping is an art, but prostitution is a shame.

I don't think men objectify women, I think women objectify themselves. The only way to escape remarks on your physical appearance is to ruin your beauty and free yourself from sexual appetites.

There is nothing more beautiful than standing up for what and who you believe in.

If you're not growing and changing, you might as well be dead.

I do believe in something, but it's not God.

I want to escape technology forever, yet I check Facebook everyday.

The best way to earn my respect is to not care if you have it.

Family, friends, and flames are important, but never forget that you came into this world alone, and that's how you will leave it. Do what makes you happy, whatever it is, no matter what anyone says along the way. Never let anyone hold you back or dismiss your priorities. Don't be afraid to fuck up, and don't be too stuck up to say you're sorry. Help your friends and love your family, but fuck em all if they chain you down. Find your passion and live the fuck out of it, everything else will follow.

onwards&upwards

-foxx

star-dusted souls

365 Days of Creativity

day eighty nine

star-dusted souls

chipped nails

cutting rails

prepping heaven

up til seven

snort it back

we'll die together

re-emerge

as flaming feather

Baby's dancing

lights are flashing

no one sees

her brain is crashing

bodies roll

on waves of absinthe

pure as sin

our bodies chanting

"Take us past the fourth dimension"

you and me

our veins are thrashing

trying to reject the trash in-

-side our minds

we trade our cash

for three more lines

we split the last

it's party time

the cameras flash

sunglasses hide

our pupils wide

take my hand until we fly

Baby's lips are cracked and dry

gyrating hips

rotating time

star-dusted souls

debating why?

innocence

through smoke and pyre

pass the torch

breathe in, get higher

music is

our saviour's choir

we love to live

and live on fire

it's ecstasy

that we desire

and ecstasy

that we acquire

the only things I'll ever need

are you and me

and ecstasy

DAMNED: A Novella

It's finally here, my first published works.

Previously I had the Novella up for sale on a file hosted site, but I've taken it down. It is definitely still available for online delivery. If you're interested in getting a hold of a copy, just email me at lillithfoxx@hotmail.com, and we can work something out.

I'm going insane for all of the stress and excitement this has caused me, but it's up and running; really and truly available for purchase on the internet.

After much prepping and debating and formatting and reformatting and searching and researching and humming and hawing and an unbelievable amount of trial and error; I've decided to self-publish my novella here, on my own.

This is a novella, a dark and romantic story of unrequited love. 

I've opened my heart to the Ether and let it tell its own tale of lust and destruction through me.

But there is so much more to love than lust. There is so much more to life than death. And there is so much more to death than we have ever known before.

No one ever tells you how good the high feels. How hard it is to hate paradise. There's no warning sign on those you meet, [MAY INDUCE EUPHORIA], if there had been, maybe Eve would have stayed away. Perhaps she could have run when there was still time.

Lust is a hunter that no one can escape from.

DAMNED: A tale of sex, death, and what lies beyond. 


The download includes the following formats;

Epub (Apple iPad&iBooks/Nook/Sony/Kobo)
Kindle (Mobi)
PDF (PC/Mac reading)

Feel free to contact me with any comments, questions, or qualms at lillithfoxx@hotmail.com

Best Quotes From The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray

favourite quotes

"...I don't propose to discuss politics, sociology, or metaphysics with you. I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world." -Lord Henry

"I sometimes think, Harry, that there are only two eras of any importance in the world's history. The first is the appearance of a new medium for art and the second is the appearance of a new personality for art..." -Basil

"What you have told me is quite a romance, a romance of art one might call it, and the worst of having a romance of any kind is that it leaves one so unromantic." -Lord Henry

"Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love's tragedies." -Lord Henry

"...To influence a person it to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for." -Lord Henry

"...Beauty is a form of Genius - is higher, indeed, than Genius, as it needs no explanation. It is one of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, or spring-time, or the reflection in dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon. It cannot be questioned. It has its divine right of sovereignty." -Lord Henry

"Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic." -Narration

"There was something terribly enthralling in the exercise of influence. No other activity was like it. To project one's soul into some gracious form, and let it tarry there for a moment; to hear one's own intellectual views echoed back to one with all the added music of passion and youth; to convey one's temperament into another as though it were a subtle fluid or a strange perfume: there was a real joy in that - perhaps the most satisfying joy left to us in an age so limited and vulgar as our own, an age grossly carnal in its pleasures, and grossly common in its aims." -Narration

" 'I am told, on excellent authority, that her father keeps an American dry-goods store,' Said Thomas Burdon, looking supercilious.

'My uncle has already suggested pork-packing, Sir Thomas.'

'Dry-goods! What are American dry-goods?' asked the Duchess, raising her large hands in wonder, and accentuating the verb.

'American novels,' answered Lord Henry..."

" 'How dreadful!' cried Lord Henry. 'I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect.'

'I do not understand you,' said Sir Thomas, growing rather red.

'I do, Lord Henry,' murmured Mr Erskine, with a smile."

"Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of intellect - simply a confession of failure." -Lord Henry

"Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are. A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible. He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realize." -Lord Henry

"The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror." -Lord Henry

As you may have noticed, most of these quotes are from Lord Henry, who I fondly think of as Oscar Wilde himself. I feel if any movie had done the novel justice, then Lord Henry would top many of the most dangerously-influential character charts. Right next to Tyler Durden and V.

Cosmopolis Quotes

COSMOPOLIS

“She thought I was dissolvable in water.”

"Do people still shoot at presidents? I thought there were more stimulating targets."

“Talent is more erotic when it’s wasted.”

“It’s not the sex you think I’ve had, it’s the sex you know I want that you smell on me.”

A SPECTER IS HAUNTING THE WORLD - THE SPECTER OF CAPITALISM

“Stun me, I mean it. I want you to do it Kendra, show me what it feels like, I’m looking for more, show me something I don’t know, stun me to my DNA, come on do it, flick the switch, aim and fire, I want all the voltage the weapon holds, do it, shoot it, now.”

“There’s pain enough for everybody now.”

“I have become an enigma to myself.”

On The Boardwalk

365 Days of Creativity

day eighty eight

on the boardwalk

Autumn air hugs my side, cooling my feverish forehead.

The sun-bleached mountains carve the horizon, and if I crease my vision they fade completely. If I raise the cry of the gulls to blot out the sirens, I can almost imagine I'm somewhere else.  I can think that I'm on a distant windy seashore, salty and sweet.

I can almost believe I'm not going to die here in the Valley.

Almost.

lolita

365 Days of Creativity

day eighty seven

lolita

You cannot blame sweet Lolita

You cannot arrest gentle Lo.

Her soft hands and wide stare are no match for his clothes,

for she is a delicate doe.

Buttons and buckles and broad brimmed ideas,

his figure a solid chateau.

A house giving warmth and knowledge and shelter,

A place she will want so to go.

And not knowing why,

her desire shall grow.

Till her fears and aversions she'll throw-

in favour of safety and smart conversation

found in arms of an older beaux.

It is oft that a lass learns to be a lady,

faster than her body will grow.

Though merely thirteen, she may have a mind

with opinions and wits decades old.

Her age; an asylum,

Her body; betrays her,

a filly finished as a foal.

It is then poor Lolita, will reach out to his heat

so freeing herself of the cold.

No, you cannot blame sweet Lolita,

for seduction was never her goal.

It was instinct which drove ripe Lolita,

into the jaws of the troll.

The Nightmare

365 Days of Creativity

day eighty five

The Nightmare

I was one in a group of one hundred. We all sat in a row, reclined and immobile in padded seats. Like asylum theater chairs. To my right, a lovely girl, frightened and downy soft, my closest friend. She stared straight above her, like we all did. Dozens of faces upturned, waiting for their moment of reckoning. And above us, gliding silently, an assembly line of faces parallel to our own, but these were eyeless and alabaster. Male mannequins without features. They faced downward, identical and blind, looking for one of us that was different.

From the left, the endless assembly approached. A single head, humming with omniscience, bore down on us. He seemed to see, to smell, to sense our souls. With each person he passed, he gained life, spirit energy, leaving behind a trail of downtrodden faces, suddenly aged and empty; leafless trees in the frost.

He was three spots-two spots-right next to me. His square jaw pushed into my vision. Time slowed. But no, it was the line that slowed as he came to a stop. But not above me. I was not pure, not unique. No desire for my individual sameness.

It was her, my soul mate. He, hovering above, she, nearly drowning in her own tears. His face aglow with the supernova hidden within her. From behind where his neck should have been, two silky, translucent obtrusions pushed forth. The amoeba-like apparitions moved through the air as if it were water. Floating and wavering, five probes formed on each tube. They stretched and squirmed and saturated the air with their coolness. Longer and longer, like hovering strings of saliva, they took the alien form of disjointed fingers.

The pointed tips yearned forward, and my love screamed with their closeness. Her lips trembled and eyes shook in their sockets, leaping around as though to escape her skull. Stretching, spreading, multiplying and morphing, the hands crept forward, swallowing the space by inches and inches and one inch more- I ripped the air open with a lung-burning NO. And stunned, the fingers hung over her skin, her lashes flung wide as she stared into sin.

Slowly, so slowly, like the turn of his head was stretching time itself, the head curved in my direction. His blank face uncannily echoed everyone I had ever known.

Though unmistakably an attempt at a human, he was just as clearly the child of science and hell. Made from something too white, and too stiff, movements too smooth and visage without definition except- When had that appeared? He had a mouth, a horizontal oval of red, with a rectangle of black in the center. And it was two-dimensional, so from the from it was wide and flat, but if he had turned sideways it might seem not to exist at all. 

The track glided backward, his face keeping a direct line with mine, turning as he came above me. He held his ghostly gelatinous arms out threateningly to the sides, long fingers quivering with excitement.

His rounded mouth split sideways. The top half moved right, and the bottom, left. The motion revealed new shapes, three connecting triangles, black, violet and orange. These too slid away to show the sharp corners of violent green and cancerous yellow squares. His skinny appendixes stretched forth, touching either side of my face. Long, knobbed and slick, the icicles slid down my cheeks and coolly caressed my neck. Colder and colder the creepers became, until I could barely feel them. So distracted was I by the design of colours above me that I almost didn't notice his hands were halfway down my back. My lungs seemed to crystallize, each shallow breathe sounding out with a crackle of ice.

The slithering nitrogen caressed and conquered my lower back, spreading flat around my kidneys. The face was a mess of geometric shapes, still spinning in a random trance. They slowed their movement as the ice spread around my spine, and snapped into a final position when the knives dug into my back. A face formed by dyes above me, two wholes left for no eyes. The tender flesh between my ribs and hips was pierced with heads of frost like daggers seared with the temperature of dark matter. Deeper and upwards the scepters where thrust, icing and cutting their way through my innards into my torso and up to my chest. The hands of the devil would be welcome candles compared to this nightmare. He hooked each crooked finger around my heart, and with one fatal snap, severed all of the veins, and sinew and life that connected my soul to my body. 

All that was left was a beast with a mask, clutching my heart in its hands.

The Valley

365 Days of Creativity

day eighty five

The Valley

They come here and fall in love. The sweet young things, swept away by the sun and the sands and the cool dollar signs. Here their youth seems justified, matched and rewarded with the vitality of the lake and the immortality of the sky. Cradled on all sides by mountains and swathed in the blanket of summertime, these girls, these tight bodies and bountiful smiles, they are swallowed here, in the valley.

As they fall through Autumn, memories of the months before blur the descent. The trip is drowned out by a sweet cacophony of downy brown leaves stirred by crisp winds which freeze the dedicatedly bare legs. 

Too distracted are they to notice that Summer has left without them. Dead is the season of their content, and with a wakening thud these buxom beauties land to spend Winter in the belly of the beast. Living, no, surviving year after year. Each passing Winter steals a little more of their youth, and a lot more of their happiness until they are left as icy and bitter as the season itself.

What of Spring? you ask, ah that inspiring time when Lady Earth blossoms into a Mother. Her children sing songs of glacier dew in morning-piercing melodies. That triple time, three months in a row, hopping lightly along with a tip-tip-tip toe. A command of movement given to two young lasses like "March, April May!" The wonder of which is not wasted on this pit of sagging skin and menthol cigarettes. No, springtime is welcomed, for it in turn welcomes the arrival of new slender does, budding with breasts and flowering while they still have a rose to grow. 

Cradled and cooed at then cat-called and crowded, quickly captured and caught up by vultures and hounds. Handsome purebreds though aged, their wallets are plump, and fat appetites are starving for fresh little cunts. See what song has been made by such a morbid routine? The murder of youth by the promise of green. Say goodbye to your soft skin, and goodbye to your dreams, for it's here they are swallowed by the valley, The Queen.

Snow to Honey

365 Days of Creativity

day eighty four

Snow to Honey

I saw myself walking down a street at the peak of midnight. That hypnotic time when Mother reigns, moving free and ethereal in her commanding hush of darkness. It was in this transcendent space that I wandered, soaked by the liquid moonlight, penetrated by the silver glow of that oversized stone. 

Bare foot by bare foot, I made my way through a quiet village, a place abandoned by God and forgotten by Lucifer. Cold cobblestones warmed by my heat, still air stirred by the sway of my arms. Waking from a long slumber, this personified mystery, this lost locale of intertwining elements. I walked on the line between worlds, I balanced on the equinox.

Nude, my lustrous skin repelled the gloom. Lithe limbs gliding in arcs, winding and writhing, carving trails of diamond-dust into the air, leaving behind a wake of suspended galaxies. They rotated slowly, giving off glints of the secrets of the universe while the miniature stars swirled in hypnotic eddies. The worlds were shaped by the curve of my hips and the sway of a shoulder. An eyelash dropped and fell to the earth, blooming into an ivory vine upon contact with the stoned pathway. It crept up the bricks of a boarded up home, blossoming every few feet into a gossamer petaled lily.

I watched myself move, and observer of my own body. At once seeing my motions as well as feeling the sky breathe upon my skin. An illuminated creature, all alabaster and cream. A crown of frosted leaves was woven into the lengths of pearly silk that was my hair. It flowed in rivulets, pouring around my shoulders and crashing in great milky waves down my back where it swept to a finish on the sweet arch of my bared upper thighs. The twists and curls wound wildly down to their glitter-giving ends where the ivory locks evolved into a deep shade of gold. A great gradient from the mid-length to tip, of cloud to sun, snow to honey.

Whispered and worshipped I walked through the grave of a village, one foot leading to another to give life back to the purgatory. Showing the undead that there is a matter betwixt the stars, and though it may be dark, it can still be touched by the light.

Still

Dear Everyone;

You must all be hoping for a story of how I got caught up in a two month long venture wherein I was captured, trained, fucked and loved and abandoned, and in the end found myself Queen of a kingdom full of ogres and nudists. God, lower your expectations a little. 

I simply had no inspiration. 

Why, you most likely didn't ask?

Because I was too damned happy. My life was simply delightful. I had two weeks off, full of novels and sunshine and vector cereal. Nothing to complain about. NOTHING to write about. And no, I couldn't have written about how happy I was, and definitely NO I don't get inspiration from sunshine or breakfast foods or little kids with face paint on, (that's Canada day, from what I remember, also too many flashes of Hello Kitty accessories for a mid-sized canadian town full of white people, but bitches love overpriced kittens with bows.) so really there was nothing to do but suffer through my blissful existence, contemplating the unimportant questions like Why some authors keep their middle initials, and How long it would take Usain Bolt to get me a coffee and When did I get that bruise?

So upset had I been that I hadn't written in forever that I got into a state of sadness for just long enough to allow me to think above the sea of trivial tasks and actually write something. It's not an epic or anything, but it's more words than cereal.

365 Days of Creativity

day eighty three

STILL

Your words capture me

and kill me

Glistening, untouchable

like gasoline rainbows

Suspended in space

You're voice, still here,

not echoing, but constant

Sounds unending

Respect,

             found,

                       new.

Newfound respect for you.

For me.

You told me once.

And I believed.

                        Believe

Still believing

                     Still listening

Reassuring in it's boldness

Hovering around still

            Not still, but moving

   Always never still.

Caught, preserved, but true.

        Happening now

        Happening always

Forever is right now.

Right now is forever.

drowning in a gasoline rainbow,

           I believe

thoughts 2

365 Days of Creativity

day eighty two

thoughts 2

This garden is fertilized with cigarette butts. These walls are decorated with words, and I don't remember why I put them there. The carpet is filled with the remains of meals, and drowns in drops of spilled drinks. 

I am lonely when I'm home. I am lonely when I'm surrounded. I feel disconnected, unknown, unrealized. I feel like a myth, a mistake. I am out of place in every place that I go. Is there anyone else who feels so alone?

Is it still a missed opportunity if it would have made me dreadfully unhappy?

Though I am, already, dreadfully unhappy. I want love, strength, wisdom. I feel trapped by my naivety. How can anyone speak before they have lived? The young know nothing. Every statement is simply a guess at the unknown. Like pointing the way through a cave with no lantern to guide. 

I don't care enough about anything. My dreams and goals are put on hold for things that I must do. "Fuck the way you live your lives," I scream in immature angst, but what am I proving with words, while my actions mirror yours? 9-5, nickel&dime, I work as you work, I sleep as you sleep, I eat and drink and make mistakes. This is the habit of humanity, but I don't want to be human anymore. I don't feel human anymore. I feel trapped. I feel like reality is a facade, a silly trick played on us, to see who will fall for it. And like lambs to the slaughter, we lap at the fodder, feasting at our troughs.

Everyday I walk along, feeling wholly disconnected from the rest of the world. Isolated within my own mid, cursed with the burden of thoughts. They run in circles, these thoughts of mine. Joining hands and voices in endless arcs of Ring Around the Rosie. "who-are-they what-are-they what-do-they-want?" My own mind mocks me with a melody, while it's my soul that is suffering. It's not a pain so great as depression, more of a hollowness. A constant melancholy. A complete indifference to the world around me. Not a mote of care for schol, work, money. Yet I deeply yearn for a soulful connection, not a fake friendship based on meaningless works. Everyday I walk along, a hypocrite, a young mind trapped by its own deficiencies. I walk troubled and timed and terribly true. I walk alone.

Suicide Girl Fight Club Fan Art

365 Days of Creativity

day eighty one

the original photo from a Suicide Girls photoshoot, of the "female fight club"

my free-handed drawing of the killer lady

City Life

365 Days of Creativity

day eighty

CITY LIFE

the traffic moves

in a mollasical flow

drags me down

in its undertow

amoeba-like hands

throughout the city

industrial maze

beautiful and gritty

oil stains

like black birthmarks

dashed guiding lines

no longer stark

a concrete wood

with bark like brick

the moss below

unhoused and sick

and critters crawl

let's call them crowds

no smiles found

for they weren't taught how

an open-topped tomb

a great mass grave

where the undead live

and the living slave

so rare

a free-souled bird flies by

but quickly caught

its wings are tied

it walks alone

forever tethered

no rodents see

this rat is feathered

Life is Art

Deceitful art is a sin greater than murder. Art reveals more about the artist than the subject itself. True art is just masturbation hidden beneath pretty sheets. Art is a way for us to reveal that which we are too scared to simply say. Love, hate, racism, adultery, homosexuality, fury, glee, desperation, abandonment, abuse, deceit, cheating, chance, freedom; All of these things can be easily explored in the name of art. One may not commit sodomy, but one may write about it, paint it, film it, and all is well. Anything is accepted by society when labelled art.

But I say the painter and the writer are as responsible as the people who do such things in real life. Not that they should be looked down upon for such instincts and urges, but should be praised for admitting to such wants, even under the false pretense of art. Do not be scared to let yourself make art. Do not shy away from the truths which will be revealed about yourself. Instead, let yourself write the story of the psychotic murderer, write it in the first person. Immerse yourself and reveal yourself. Life is never as fun as when you're stealing it from others.

Write about things that evoke emotions from you. Don't simply write what makes everyone else happy, write about what thrills you, what scares you. Don't just write what you know, write what you want to know. Let your creation be your teacher. Let your prose be a mirror. A camera on a timer. A self-portrait. Let your art reveal parts of yourself that you didn't know you had. Risk everything not for a reward, but to chance the odds that you may break, that you may fall to the depths of your soul and discover the most terrifying truths about yourself. Put your heart into your work, write with your blood in a book bound by your own skin.

Honesty Honesty Honesty. That is art. The truth is art. Life is art. Art is not the shade, art is the light by which to cast away the shadows. Art is the means to revealing the truth. The more you lie to yourself, the harder it is to make art. The truth hurts, and the more painful the art, the more honest it will be.

For the Love of Books

365 Days of Creativity

day seventy nine

i am small

insignificant

unknown

i am stupid

oblivious

unknowing

i am cowardly

frightened

traumatized

i am lonely

undiscovered

isolated.

I walk,

a miniature

on shelves of oak

Leather

Mahogany

Ink

Bound together

Captured

Caught

Immortalized

Worlds

Nations

Perpendicular

Universes

Nothing

like this

I skip,

across

the spines

Clamber

up the

covers

My path

is paved

with

passages

A letter-bricked

road

from

A to Z

I undress

bare, skin

soul

and consciousness

Poised

on edge

of paper bound

Feel pulp

pressed

thin

between my toes

and into

worlds

nations

parked perpendicular

I dive

headlong

naked

nothing

canvas clean

I bathe

in dreams

of geniuses

let words

wash,

letters

lather,

paragraphs

punctuate.

I,

a sponge

they,

the water

slowly

swiftly

suck in truths

absorb ideas

displayed uncouth

I wade

through

minds

of men

birthed

from

minds

of men

fact is

fiction

as I 

see fit

poultice

and

poison

paint with

identical

hues

I backstroke

through stories

bound by

the skin

of the dead

I am taught

by men

long gone

friends are

found

in

Flander's fields

These words

like a cake

that begs

"eat me"

implore me

to grow

I Am Big

Significant

Known

I Am Smart

Aware

Knowing

I Am Brave

Fearless

Untouched

I Am Allied

Discovered

Surrounded.

The Cherub's Ghoul

365 Days of Creativity

day seventy eight

The Cherub's Ghoul

From lands of lost

a cherub came

he thumbed a harp

and sweetly sang

skin like cream

and wings like dove

with hands too small

for common glove

and round his neck

he wore a bag

of leather tough

for such a babe

whence tender song

was softly sung

he daintily

made bag unslung

with kindest glow

he drew the string

angelic smile

unleashed the Thing

a flash of blue

like fire's scorch

entrapt in dark

the only torch

these flames of black

and indigo

from under hood

of ink, did glow

these eyes which saw

more than I said

and mouth which ate

more than I fed

a gaping maw

like flesh torn wide

he took my fear

to be his bride

he stood, a pit

of lustless power

at once both hole

and tallest tower

not that the wraith

exuded cold

but all source of heat

he did enfold

with vocal rattle

stolen from

a thousand men

sisters and sons

he spoke two words

that "Fear's unfair"

while Cherub laughed

and lounged on air

they both drank deep

my skin and soul

but 'fore I died

they let me go

and cut from thought

this awful thread.

But ho! What man

waits on my bed?

The Curious Case of Influence VS Inspired Self Reflection

The Curious Case of Influence VS Inspired Self Reflection

Influence. Oscar Wilde has said in his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, that influencing another person is invading upon them a part of your soul. Poisoning them with your ideas and your beliefs, and impressing upon them notions and urges which are unnatural to themselves. 

Chuck Palahniuk wrote in Invisible Monsters, "I am the combined effort of everybody I've ever known." He expresses that who we are is just a collection of fragments of features and follies from both our friends and our foes.

Within each of us lies our true ideals and impulses, and too easily are we conquered by the beliefs of others. To me, the more I look around, the more I see this to be true. It's happened often where the thoughts I've expressed in conversation with a friend I've later heard to be re-stated by them as passionately and proudly as if the were their own. And I'm positive such situations have occurred in my own words as well.

You can already tell that while Wilde did not invade me with his statements on beauty, as I'll explain, he did influence me with his writing style. For I do not usually write with such properness and grandeur, but after reading his words I cannot escape the power of his impressions. At least temporarily.

Why is this? How do we stop such invading influences? How do we escape the ideas of our acquaintances? 

I suppose the only way to be one's true self is to learn who we really are. To know what we believe in our souls, and not the ideals of others. I've written before of the morals that we uphold, not because we are truly certain of them, but simply because they've been pressed upon us repeatedly. Until by sheer repetition of words, it has become our instinct to look down on those who lie and cheat, and those who are too bold with statements and insults. But it's these moments of brutal honesty which are the glimpses of one's true self.

Exploring the soul of ourselves is a frightening and difficult task. Looking inward is undeniably harder that looking outward. For a surface example of this, I'll use my own situation. 

I am a filmmaker, or perhaps in a delusion of grandeur, I fancy myself as one, and I spend a plethora of my time watching films. I view at least one a day, usually two, and still often, three or more. But how many films do I make? A pitiful number no doubt. I have made no feature films, but have seen over eight hundred. I ingest so many stories and dramas and messages without creating any of my own. Do you see what I mean about looking outward being simpler than inward? Can you think of something in your life where you act similarly?

This what I mean by learning about others, and how much more common it is than learning about ourselves.

It's not so simple to explore the unmapped terrain of oneself. I for one, cannot simply sit down and say, "Today I'm going to learn who I truly am." This would be perhaps a form of meditation. Maybe the people who do meditate can achieve this immediate state of self learning, I do not know. But for myself (and probably the average person of my young age) solitude in itself does not grant self-exploration.

When I am alone, I do think of many things, often in a fiery and eager state, but usually the ideas I explore are not of myself.

As an activity it may seem vain to sit and ponder one's own soul, and it can quickly lead to doubts and debates of the importance of one's existence, but this is not the dilemma of which I wish to speak.

So you may ask, what does inspire me to delve into the mysterious mountains of my true mind?

Usually, and ironically, it is the outer influence of other's ideals. But it's not the same obtrusive poison of which I spoke earlier. It is not the drop of pigment which, once mixed into the paint of one's soul, cannot be extracted. But it is more a dollop of paint set before you, so shiny that in the surface, a colour of your own soul is reflected.

I apologize if I've become too metaphorical. What I mean to say is that by hearing of someone else's opinions, I am often able to learn of my own. For example, in my reading of the first part of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde has already mentioned much about youth and beauty. He speaks of how Beauty is a form of Genius greater than Genius itself, for it is undeniable and divine. This is something that struck a chord with me. I realized that in my heart, I mostly agreed with his words. That physical beauty, of art, of animals, of humans, and appreciating it is an ideal that I hold dear and truly believe in.

To further explain that this is not something that I've simply absorbed from outward influence, I'll clarify what was attempted to be impressed upon me. The common people (people that I run into in my daily life) have often expressed emotions of hate toward the standards of beauty that we have today. And I have always disagreed. I think that fashion and photography is a modern way of appreciating the human form. And the widespread deliverance of these images of gorgeous people should not be scorned as harshly as it is. 

That is to say, I don't think that women or men should see themselves as unappealing if they're not a likening of the famous beauties. But the "perfect" people do give us something to strive towards, if we're so inclined. They should be seen as a form of inspiration for personal fitness, if one is needed, or at least as a living, human example of art.

The individuals are to be appreciated and celebrated, and not ridiculed for making physical beauty a priority. But enough, I forget myself. 

I hope you understand what I mean about the difference between influence and inspired self reflection.

Perhaps that's another reason why I watch so many films; I hope that some with start the trains of thought that lead me to learn about myself. Because our interpretations of art reveal more about ourselves than they do the works, or the creator of them.

I implore you to look deeper into yourself, and more often. Try to differentiate the seeds of ideas that are yours, and the buds that have been planted by those around you. Try to explore your uncharted terrains, and as you find the hidden coves and overturn each moss-covered rock, share it with the world. Convert what you know into art. Into pictures and books and paintings. Into conversations with friends. And hopefully, the consumers of your work are strong enough not to be influenced, but inspired.

The Oasis

365 Days of Creativity

day seventy seven

There is a place where no one goes

where winds are warm

and palm fronds grow

Beside a stream that glitters gold

and whispers things

that go untold

And drops of dew that grass blades hold

and buds are born

that don't grow old

Only two seasons touch the shores

from spring to summer

to spring once more

And the moon and sun have faces joined

each one a side

of spinning coin

But round this place lies seas of sand

dry and dead

the no-mans lands

and after sixty miles hence

there lies a guard

a concrete fence

A forest waits beyond the wall

with trees that watch

the sands in awe

They crowd and push and yearn toward

the paradise

the summer shores

But broke boughs bend with effort cheap

and bow, become

the willows weep

Can I Just Say?

365 Days of Creativity

day seventy six

excuse me for staring
  but can I just say
that women are rarely
  women these days
and the way your hair falls
  and your features of grace
are pleasing and perfect
  in all the right ways

your expression shows joy
  and your shoulders hold poise
and you prefer men
  to spirited boys
you have a way
  of using your voice
to scold and seduce
  and egos destroy

we've only just met
  but already I know
that I'm going to miss you
  as soon as you go
because Darling, my Dear,
  -May I call you those?
I've fallen for you
  I've lost all control

so follow me, come with me
  stay with me true
for something so lovely
  I could never abuse
I may end up broken
  I seem doomed to lose
but for a touch of your charm
  I'd happily bruise

it's eyelashes long
  and brows raised in arch
it's knowledge of Poe
  and your passion for art
it's the way that you walk
  with swagger and spark
it's all of yourself
  that's stolen my heart

I deserve nothing more
  than to be left behind
but I swear to you babe
  I'd stay by your side
I'll climb and I'll crawl
  and I'll gladly die
so you may walk forth
  and stay sweetly alive

excuse me for staring
  but can I just say
that women are rarely
  women these days
and the song of my soul
 I wish I could play
because you move so quickly
  as you walk away.

RANT: Loneliness and an Exploration of What Causes It.

This is a sort of continuation of off my last rant.

***

Lately I've taken to contemplating loneliness, what it means to really be lonely. You can have your family and friends and all that fun stuff, but you're always alone really. Other than the physical companionship of having someone sit next to you, maybe share their opinions with you, even make you laugh once in a while. Other than that, you really are alone. And even if you find someone to connect with, they have their own mind, their own thoughts and within that place they're alone too.

Anyways, I've been thinking about the feeling of loneliness, if it really is a feeling of despair, or if it's  technically being aware of being alone. Because we are, we are truly alone within ourselves, and so honestly we should be feeling loneliness all the time, should we not? Other than when we're with someone, but even then during a conversation you have your thoughts and you're thinking about something completely different or of the words you wish you really could say.

So the only time we're not alone is when two people are completely and honestly saying every thought that comes into their mind. But who does that? No one. People are too scared to say what they think and say what they mean and say what they feel, so we all end up bullshitting each other, and isn't that really the lowest of the low? I mean you start kidding everyone else and soon enough you're going to be kidding yourself too.

And then you're not just lonely, but you're delusional, you're a whole other level of lonely. When you can't even be honest with yourself and no one is honest with you, you're just surrounded by this world made of lies, just completely fucking made of lies, and who's going to break it? It's weird if some does right? It's like "What? You can't say that, you can't come here and just say whatever you want. That's not how society works, that's not how people work anymore, you can't have these urges, you can't want to beat somebody up, you can't just want sex for sex."

What kind of freak just admits that they want to break something? All of a sudden, everything that we were built for, every natural urge becomes completely unacceptable. We've created these lies and now the lies are the truth.  Like everybody wants love and relationship and has manners, and we're not allowed to kill, that's alright, but we're not allowed to talk about it? We're not allowed to talk about the urge to want to? It's fucked.

And now I'm the bad guy, because I'll admit that every once in a while I want to hurt something, I want to really fucking hurt something, and that's weird and that's wrong. When we we're meant to do that, we're violent creatures, we were meant to have anger. If we weren't it wouldn't Fucking exist. It's survival.

Although honestly there's been few out of all the times that I've wanted to destroy something that it was about survival, the rest of the time I just want to fucking do it. I just want to make something bleed because I'm fucking angry. Because it'll fuckin help me, cuz I will be happy. I just want to take something beautiful and shatter it every once in a while. And I think that's fine, that's normal, more people should do that, more people should at least confess that they want to do that.

Sometimes I just want to fuck something and I dont want to have to take care of it. I don't want a boyfriend all the time, I don't want to have to have this stupid emotional connection to enjoy physical pleasure, how is that something that we have made mandatory? How are two things that are so completely different, something that is so visceral like emotion, something that can be created on a whim that can be evoked with simple words, how can something like that have been made to be required so that something that is physical and tangible and real can happen?

We haven't made it so that you have to love or get to know your food to enjoy it. We don't even have to grow the food anymore, you can go out, get someone else to make it for you and all you have to do is enjoy it. No emotional effort, no six dates first, you just get immediate pleasure yet, that's completely ok.

Isn't really satisfying hunger just a physical thing? Isn't eating just a physical act that will result in an emotional response? Pleasure, flavours? Isn't sex then, in theory, just the same thing as having a really good piece of pie? All you're doing is something physical to gain an emotional satisfaction. And everyday people go out and indulge themselves in sweets and sours and salts and it's all fucking fine, but as soon as I want to go fuck somebody, oh that's immoral, that is a sin. I'm a whore and I'm a fucking skank. Well I accept myself and I'm honest.

And I don't know where I am anymore, I started off on loneliness.

I suppose it came down to lies really, and honesty, and how I just want to be honest all the time, but that's not allowed. And maybe that's why I'm lonely, is because I'm so honest. Because I try, I really do try to say what I think and feel, what I truly think and feel, not just a dumbed down and edited version of it. And because I'm the only person that I've met that does that, I'm extremely lonely.

That sucks, because that's the complete reverse of what I said loneliness was before, which was everyone lying and because we're lying to each other and lying to ourselves we've isolated our honest feelings. We've really isolated our souls, and we've trapped ourselves in these prisons of loneliness that have lies for bars, and outside of those bars are more bars that society has set up and that all of our friends have set up, so that even if we wanted to break through our cages of loneliness, there's everyone else's bars to go through.

And because I've broken through, (or mainly, still working on that), I'm lonely. Because once you get outside, there's no one else around, it's just a bunch of fucking bars. I look around and I see a big huge field of cages and every once in a while I'll see a hand reach out or I'll catch a glimpse through the bars at someone's true self, but suddenly a new bar comes because they see someone walking around, someone not in a cage and it fucking scares them.

Here I am in this valley of prisoners and everyone's all locked up inside their little cages surrounded by lies and I'm lonely and I'm outside and I'm waiting for someone else, for anyone else really. To just fucking get out, just break through, I'm not going to say it's not hard, it is hard, and you may lose friends but thats good, it means that you're moving forward. It means that you're slowly leaving behind all the other cages, and that's what I'm going to fucking do!

I'm going to keep moving and I'm going to walk forward, because I know that this big huge field, this plateau of all these rotten cages, this is not it, there's more. There is a place where there's people who are free, and they get to live in paradise and that's where I'm going. I'm going to break off my last few bars and I'm going to go there, and it's just going to be a whole group of people who are honest and true. I'm going to meet them, and we're going to share ourselves, like society has taught us not to.

I may be the only one right now, at least that I know of, but times are changing, and it's onwards and it's upwards, or it's jail. And I'm not going to stay here while everyone surrounds themselves with lies, and other people's lies and society's lies. I'm not going to do it, fuck that.

I know this sounds crazy, and you're probably thinking who the fuck does she think she is and why isn't she in a psych ward, but it's a metaphor god damnit! We all need to be more honest with each other, but mainly ourselves. If you want to break out of your cage, I want to know. I want to help, because honestly, I'm lonely out here.

RANT: Maybe I'm Fucked, Maybe You're Just Lying

Today one of the teachers at my film school said that often violence in films is gratuitous, meaning unnecessary, shocking and insensitive. She then praised on student film for being "the only one that didn't make [her] want to slit her wrists." She reprimanded us for using violence in a film, and then stood in front of us and made a suicide joke. And it's the fictional depiction of someone swinging a stick that's insensitive? Fuck that.

If people have the rights to attack and exploit every traumatizing event in the name of humour, then people should have the right to display violence and blood in the name of entertainment.

Is it not really the same thing? Making disturbing matters a source of enjoyment by taking away the negative connotations and consequences. Isn't it better to explore violence and pain through art and film than in reality?

I will confess, although I see it less as a confession, and more a statement of fact, that I enjoy violence. I like to see broken noses and bloody lips. I gain enjoyment, and sometimes even glee when I watch pain and destruction. Maybe it's fucked up, but for me, it's the truth. It's natural. I don't know if it makes me feel strong or superior or anything like that, and it's certainly not a form of sexual arousal, (though pain and pleasure can be as sweet a pairing as caffeine and nicotine.) it merely pleases me to see such things.

And as I sit here and think of it now, it seems to be quite exact events that bring such enjoyment. For instance, I don't like the slow, agonizing cuts drawn across flesh, not bones being cracked into smaller and smaller pieces, definitely not rape or pleas of pity. It's the more sudden, violent events that gain my reaction. Shot gun blasts to chests, 50 cal bullets that rip skull from spine in a splatter of blood. Curb stomps and whip cracks. Sword slashes. Explosions and fire and cries of rage as a hammer is swung into a skull.

Even as I write these things, I gain a sense of urgency, my pulse quickens, my adrenaline is awoken and I feel the urge to Hit something. HARD.

But I don't, and that's the human feature or practice or habit or form of surpression known as civility. One of the things that makes us human is our ability to control our emotions. But this act of "decency" is just that, an act. I am still an animal, I still have urges. My instincts still drive me to eat and fuck and honestly yes, kill. And if I can't express myself, if I can't release these urges through art, through film, then where shall I do it?

If violent videos seem too insensitive, maybe you suggest I should get out more?