Damaged

365 Days of Creativity

day seventy

Damaged

Just one more. 


One more time and it's done.


One more excruciating, humiliating time, and you can be beautiful. 


This is just something I have to do. 


How could anyone love me if I don't? I wouldn't love me. 


Once more, you can do it. One last heave, one last push, one last forceful and self induced instance of destruction.


It hurts, but all of the things that are worth it do.


I used to cry when I did it. Sometimes it would burn so bad I thought I was bleeding inside. Not anymore. Now I'm stronger. But still not good enough.


I hate that I have to do this. I hate myself even more when I don't. What happens when the lesser of two evils is the one that does more damage?


Stop it. You can do it. One last push and you can leave this room. 


Don't even think about how you'll be back tomorrow.


Don't think about how you'll never escape, how "one more" really just means "for now".


Think about what you want to be. Think about how you won't be good enough for anyone unless you do this. 


Ok, it's ok. Just one more, and I can sleep in peace. One more, and someone will love me. One more, and I'll be happy. 


Maybe.

She closed her eyes and stuck her finger down her throat once more.

Ars Longa, Vita Brevis

365 Days of Creativity

day sixty nine

This took so much longer than I thought it would, but I designed each letter myself, so I suppose that's the price of originality. 

"Art is Long, Life is Short"

The Resort Affair

365 Days of Creativity

day sixty eight

He can’t give his heart to her, he traded it for silver.

In her veins is the blood of the man she couldn’t love.

"Damn it damn it damn it all.
You’re not supposed to be here. You’re not supposed to speak. I’m not allowed to love you, you might as well just leave.
So fuck it fuck it fuck it all.
I want to break your ribs. I want to eat your marrow and I want to learn to live.
It’s you, it’s me, it’s all of them. It’s this city and that town and the places I’ve been. It’s his voice that brings me back to you, and it’s your eyes that claw within."

The sun is drunk and the winds are high. The music stings with strings that break. The coffee girl snorts cocaine in the back while the barman serves liquid blow to men with faces that haven’t known razors in days. Women sip on drinks named after sexual positions while they remember the real ones they’ve done for men they once met in the hopes of keeping them around. But for all the open thighs and toe-touching the women now sit at a sopping bar with their elbow skin sticking and pulling to the surface while their lips still suck, but on a smaller, thinner poles of suicide.

It’s hot outside and the heat pours in waves like the tired pushes of a lover too-long on top. He walks with staggered steps, the shots of rum conquering him like the Leucochloridium Paradoxum that takes over a snail's mind, invading his limbs and eyes, forcing him to call attention to himself with his imitation of walking on a rocking boat. His blurred vision targets a lawn chair, and the sound of the piano player’s gravelly voice paves a path for him to the seat.

It’s two hours later.

The sun is lower, but still in command. It’s sobered up a bit, lessening the heat, and so has the man. He could walk straight now, but doesn’t. He likes the chair. It’s the perfect place between the bar and the rest of the pool deck, so all of the women have to walk in front of him to get their drinks. And they’re always getting drinks. The women go into the bar and he sees the tans. The golds and coppers and bronzes of skin pulled tight by scalpels and stitches, all burned and boiled, soaked in the sickening scent of coconut. The return trip is like a kaleidoscope. The vivid blues and radioactive greens, the warning-label oranges, and the pinks that could be blended barbies, all trapped within wide-brimmed crystal glasses with skinny stems that make the women look dainty and delicate like the dishes, no matter how fast they slam the frozen liquors back.

She sits across from him. The expanse of the salt-water pool stands as the barrier between them, a great lake of challenges and men on loungers with their wrists held upright so the rolex’s and country club rings don’t rot in the natural waters. She’s been here since before the 24 hour bar opened, this is the sixth Cuban she’s had in her mouth in the past two days, and the first cigar. Her lids lie heavy with fake lashes, barely leaving her room to observe him from across the pool. The sunglasses perched on her head just behind her boner-straight bangs cost more than her lifetime coffee supply, but less than her cocaine addiction. She powders her nose once every hour on the hour. Sometimes twice. Little piles, the smallest bumps that tickle her nasal chords and act like tiny little snorts of adrenaline. It’s due time for another speedbump, but the man has her attention. He hasn’t seen her past all of the metallic covered cottage cheese thighs. He won’t see the imperfections in the women, but she can spot them like red wine on white cotton. 

It’s time for a drink. She won’t touch fruit, and ice makes her throat dry up. You never know when you’ll be on your knees next and the most embarrassing thing when getting to know a man’s pride is not having the liquid to supply him with the joy. She orders a tequila that sounds like a type of motor oil. Her neck snaps back and forth and the glass sings a smack as it hits the counter.

This one, he notices, this one doesn’t add to his rainbow of calorie-filled pantie droppers. She cuts out the smoke and mirrors and heads straight for the hallway out of the fun house. Her thighs are smooth, not the well disguised ripple of the other bikinis. Her eyes under the shade of the cabana top look like two pits of tar, and damn if he didn’t love to get dirty. He felt himself shifting already, the booze in his blood made him brazened and bold, and he was beside her smoothly, or perhaps with a slight stutter to his step. His speech though, was impeccable. He said all the wrong things at all the wrong times, because that gave her a reason to correct him if she had the balls, or laugh if she got the joke. If she did neither, which most of them never did, he’d walk away. He wasn’t looking for love, and if he wanted to get laid he knew of many brothels that were cleaner than children’s hospitals and sexier than them too. They cost a lot less and took a lot less effort than fruity drinks and anorexically-veiled sexual repertoire.

She didn’t say anything. She simply stared from under the lashes that brimmed her peridot eyes like grass around a pond. Her lips were parted slightly, and her tongue played peek-a-boo, just subtly enough to almost make him think he was fantasizing it, but just sluttily enough that he didn’t care even if he was. She was brilliant and sharp and dangerous in all the ways your mother warned you about, and those she didn’t. You didn’t want to bring this woman home to mom, but you wanted to kill your mother so you could do whatever the fuck you wanted to this woman in every place you weren’t supposed to go.

Her pupils throbbed and pulsed while the man at the piano switched out for a woman whose words were like the moans that children’s ears get pressed to keyholes for. She watched him speak his lines of originality. His simple declarations of desperation. They would touch later, they would let the moon get stoned off the rocks of their body’s motions. The air would carry sounds and steams of their sex onto the ocean, and the salt of the waters would be replenished with the sweat off their skin. In a matter of a few hours, she would know him better than he knew himself. And then she would leave him. He wasn’t meant to be loved and she wasn’t meant to give it. They knew, oh they knew that they could have been happy, if only they weren’t anything like the people that they were, but instead they would be the best love affair the world ever had. And so he tested her like he tested all of them, but she couldn’t possibly fail if she didn’t give any answers. The only way to never win or lose is to never start the game at all.

I'm Starving To Know You

365 Days of Creativity

day sixty seven

I want to eat you whole

I want to dig in deep

I want to taste your soul

I want to feel your sleep

I want to kiss your lips

and lick them dry

I want to bite your lids

and touch your eyes

I'm going to chew on your lungs

and gasp when you breathe

I'm going to swallow your tongue

and moan when you speak

I want to sip on your sweat

and savour your skin

I want to nip at your chest

and spoon what's within

If I could have just this part

I'd leave you the all

If you'd donate just your heart

my own you'd enthrall

Or give me your blood

red river runs thin

I'll drink it like love

I'll learn all your sins

I wonder how ripe

your secrets will taste

I wonder the type

treasure or waste?

How rich is your guilt?

How sour your goals?

Is your skull lined with silt,

the ashes of hope?

Suppose I dine slowly

let flavours emerge

I'd taste what you felt

every raw urge

I'll cherish your fears

roll them over my tongue

I'll shoot back your tears

and learn how they stung

I'll digest your mind

your body and soul

Render my life sublime

for I crave to know

Give me angst, give me glee

give me scars and abuse

Salt the wounds till you bleed

Let me swallow the truth

I'll dissolve every gate

I'll digest every wall

I'll eat all that you hate

let me feast when you fall

Put on a platter

your skin's recipes

Pepper and spatter

your tart memories

I ask for this tray

to come to me cold

Give me this buffet

and I'll give you gold

This Isn't For You

365 Days of Creativity

day sixty six

I wrote you a poem

It was sweet in design

Loving and honest

"I want you to be mine"

Sounds warm and tender,

like tinder and thyme.

But I wanted to burn it,

so I took it inside.

Back to the depths

of my heart and my mind.

I'm not built to be happy,

loving or kind.

Bring me your past,

but ask not of mine.

Sharing is caring

is feeling divine.

Sharing is caring 

is words full of lies.

Even as you read this,

Even as you try,

to continue to hope,

to continue to pry.

This isn't for you,

it's now to realize.

You think in some way,

it's a matter of time.

I've got to come round,

to see I've been blind.

But I'm wide awake,

it's your dreams and your ties,

that need to be cut,

that need to be fried.

Don't call me baby,

don't try to be kind.

This isn't for you,

you're not in my mind.

You're asking yourself,

then why do I write?

Because I can't care,

and so I deny.

This truth is surreal,

a long twisted vine.

And so I spew fiction,

ignorance is sublime.

The Scapegoat

365 Days of Creativity

day sixty five

Label me

Paint me

Colour me true

Give me a title

A burn or a bruise

Hero or villain

sinner or saint

I'll take on the insults,

the worship,

the blame

Whatever you paint me

that's what you'll see

but no matter the words

that's not what I'll be

No halo, no crown

I'm savior to none

No trident no tail,

no forked serpent tongue

But windows don't choose which view they behold

My story is yours, however it's told.

Infected

365 Days of Creativity

sixty one

Infected

Poisonous are the

Words unsaid

      Diseased

Plagued with haunts

Fairytales in depths

                   unread

Seas of hopes
where naive swim

leave leave leave

Run

The absence of the disease is the only

cure

Stakes raised

Risk Death for Death

Doomed by dreams

The babe is born to

                   die

    Wicks are lit till

                   ash

Nothing gold can stay

                  -but

Sweet are the days

of

Shimmer and Sigh

Ere flame dies

and

Mother cries

Light is made

and

Babe sees day

return return return

Run

The presence of the disease is the only

Burn

Jack in a Box

365 Days of Creativity

day sixty three

Jack in a Box

He had been dead for six months.

Contrary to popular belief, the grave did not get comfortable. His neighbours said he'd grow accustomed to it, but there wasn't much growing that he went through anymore. He was cold constantly, and it was so damp that he was forever covered in a slick sheen of sweat. And there was nothing sexy about death sweat.

He remembered his second girlfriend. The good one. How he used to love to make her sweat. She'd writhe and twist so her body shone in the candle's flames, reflecting the light so she glowed golden. Now that was a sexy sweat. What covered Jack was not so steamy. Imagine a mussel, greasy and clammy from the sea. Now put it in a box in the dark, and bury it six feet into soft soil, the type perfect for the breeding of multi-legged life forms.

It wasn't the bugs that were the worst part, though they were bad. No, it wasn't the earthworms who squirmed, or the earwigs who managed to crawl into every whole, no matter how small. And no, it wasn't the dark, though it was overwhelming. Impossibly so. In fact, the lack of light was so severe, Jack knew he must be blind. Even if a match had been lit for him, it wouldn't have made a difference. "If you don't use it you lose it,"are words to die by. He had lost other things too. His sense of taste for one. At first, there had been the horrific flavour of rot. Like the one time he accidentally ate a roadkill steak.

That had been with Clint. Man did they do some crazy shit after college. It was the third road trip. The one to New Mexico. The duo had been starved while on the highway, so they popped into a shady looking diner. It was the last stop on the way out of a small town, and for good reason. If the restaurant had been the welcome feature, nobody would make it past the population sign. 

Two steaks, thick and heavy with blood were plopped down in front of the men. Rare was the only option, and if it weren't for Bobby-Jean and her husband Bo standing with shotguns that could kill elephants, they would have left then and there. Bo's five toothed grin told them that meat was a hot commodity around that place, and the locals weren't too particular about the source. The blood hadn't bothered Jack as much as the patch of fur that stuck to the underside of the steak. Jack remembered every excruciating bite of the flank, and exactly how the meat had chewed like a rubber ball. Each clench of the jaw released a wave of toxic taste. Like engine grease or motor oil. That melted tar mixed with rancid flesh, that was what death tasted like. Luckily after the first few weeks, Jack's tongue completely dried up, and he never had to taste anything again.

The sense he hadn't lost was the one that plagued him the most. He wished with all his might that he could be deaf, for in all of the afterlife nothing was worse than the sound of footsteps on your grave. They usually came only two or three at a time, just the stride length of a grave, but it was two or three too many. Every footstep echoed, a deep, hollow sound, like a hammer to the head of a man sleeping in a cave. The great thuds reverberated for days, pulses of sound which infected the soul, twanging the nerves with each razor-bladed wave.

Jack often thought of the films he used to love, and he cursed one scene in particular whenever the living walked overhead. Each stab to his eardrum was like the harsh slice of the violin that slashed out in the shower scene of Psycho. He wished he had been buried next to Hitchcock so he could damn the man. Jack satisfied himself with imagining that Hitchcock suffered worse stabs for he was the cause of such terrible sounds.

It was tedious, being dead. There wasn't much to do other than listen to the mice scratch at wood beside your head. The main activity that took place was reminiscence. Other than your memories, nothing else comes with you after you die. Not your clothes, not your pets, not the people that you loved. But the images of them, the pictures of their smiles and styles and tears, those stayed with you. Jack had begun to think through his life, trying to remember day by day what he had done. It was slow going, but he had nothing but time. It was hard at first, to see all of his destructive tendencies laid out in front of him. To remember the beatings and abuse and hungry nights of his childhood. To remember why he had the scar on his leg, and how he broke his arm. The memories of the car crashes and the suicides and the feelings of loneliness. Those were the terrible parts. 

But then Jack thought of the risks he had taken. The women he had fucked, the men he had known, the tattoos and drugs and alcohol that had taken him away from all of that. Maybe he had made some bad choices, maybe he had gotten his escape in all the wrong ways. But here at the end of days, Jack knew he had lived. 

He only regretted the words that he never said. And that he had never bought a more comfortable suit.

I Dreamt of You, My Love

365 Days of Creativity

day sixty two

Last night I went to a movie theater. But instead of rows of seats, there were descending levels of floors which each held a few round tables.

I wore a dress, the purpose of which was debatable. For the fabric clung and swung, so fluid that it seemed like water. It was translucent too. The skirt floated, seeming to flow on the air itself, not wanting to lay still.

There was a movie playing, something bright. But there was a stage in front of the screen, and actors were replicating their own actions from the film.

I descended into the room, level by level. My feet were bare, and the rich red carpet sunk where I stepped. It folded around my heels, kissed the soles of my feet.

The place was full of people and trails of smoke. Everyone moved slowly, with leaden, lucid movements like mollasses. Men laughed and uttered great growls as they grabbed their dates, of which there were sometimes two or three.

The women were illustriously decorated with glitter and ice. Dangling earrings like mock chandeliers, cascading necklaces which shimmered like the morning sun fractured through a silken spider web. The women tossed their curls back and laughed, teeth like pearls and skin like cream. 

Men and women chattered carelessly, while their lips didn't move. A hundred laughs tinkled like chimes in the wind.

Pillars of smoke twirled upwards from the tables. Snakes of grey and stone, twisting from the ends of coolly held cigarettes. The trails were so nearly motionless, they seemed like solid things, real reptiles which slowly undulated around a lady's wrist or a glass of scotch.

I reached the third tier down, and I recognized a face. Then another. There was a table with four people and an empty chair which could have only been meant for me. I approached the table, receiving pleasant greetings and warm welcomes. There were two men on the right, one woman on the left, and behind her, a hidden figure.

I leaned onto the back of the empty chair. My hair was piled high, but a stray lock fell onto my shoulder. The silken tendril traced a crescent on my collarbone.

A delicate chain fell from the low cut of my bodice. It swung forward and I caught a glimpse of a coin strung from the silver. On it, a man stands as a savior to a young boy, and the words above the depiction read "Saint Christopher Be My Guide".

At this moment, the movie screen burned white, and the coin around my neck spun. The light from the screen reflected off of the surface of the pendant. The woman on the left leaned back, and the redirected rays reveal the person behind her. The most flawless face in existence, with every shadow thrown back by the illumination. The beam of light delivers a golden glow. Haloed and heavenly, the angel looked at me, and my heart exploded into a thousand blissful pieces. This person, this figure, this ethereally framed statuette was you. And your beauty broke my heart.

This is Your Brain on School

365 Days of Creativity

day sixty one

This is Your Brain on School

School is bullshit.

The government plans every lesson for you, chooses every topic that you'll study for twelve years of your life.

It's been claimed that video games desensitize teens, but all sense is lost long before that. It's the classrooms that numb the minds of children.

Social Studies is the greatest offender of all.

In this course, number after number is thrown at you. Dates, coordinates, and percentages. People's names, and the places they lived, all these details that you don't give a shit about.

World War One

World War Two

Hiroshima

The Hindenburg

They take these travesties and turn them into facts. They make millions of deaths seem like petty statistics. It's not about who died, how the families coped, or the social study of loss. It's about numbers. Facts. Tidbits of history.

How could I possibly give a shit about Hiroshima? First, I didn't know anyone killed, and second, they present the event as a number.

80'000 dead.

1.6 km blast radius.

Because they taught it to me in numbers, I'm forced to compare it to other things in numbers. 

80'000 dead vs the 6'800'000'000 people in the world.

1.6 km blast radius vs the 510'072'000 square km covering the planet.

Not to mention the event compared to the timeline of human's existence. It makes it almost infinitesimal. It's so minute, so completely useless to try and feel something for these faceless numbers. I can't sympathize with a digit. 

On the other hand, the act of taking people, and summing up their deaths as numbers, saying "80'000 died" makes them seem like they still exist. Sure the people behind the numbers are dead, but together they are forever immortalized as "The Victims of Hiroshima". The individual names are forgotten, but the mass is not. No, they may not be thought upon with true tenderness or care, but at least they're thought upon at all.

I had a teacher once, she swore to the offensiveness of the film Titanic. She claimed that making a profit off of a romanticized version of the tragedy was one of the worst sins imaginable. I could see her point of exploitation for personal gain, but I defended the movie for one main reason;

It made me care.

The movie of the titanic crash, took a statistic of 1'517 dead, and made them into real people. Humans who had laughed and loved, and unfortunately were lost.

It was the only time learning about an event in history had triggered any sort of emotional response in me. While my teacher thought the love story was gimmicky, I saw it as a way to relate to the victims of the titanic. To see that there were human beings behind the numbers and percentages.

This is the power of storytelling, this is why I make movies and this is why school is bullshit. Because they throw information at you like rice at a wedding. That is your marriage to the machine. Your holy matrimony into enslavement to society. Your vows to obey.

It's time for a fucking divorce.

The Number 5

365 Days of Creativity

day sixty

The Number 5

We have five fingers.

Five senses.

We work five days a week and always wish we had five more minutes.

Five is half. Half of anything is point five.

Five dollar bill, five fave numbers, five points on a star.

Why? Why five? Though I suppose I could've picked any number and listed things around it. Yet I didn't, I picked five.

I don't particularly like five. It's unappealing to me, visually, and conceptually.

Five is awkward. Four is better, four is solid, four is safe. Even better is six. Six is sublime, six is sex. Five is fear.

I don't even like the hour of five. Five o'clock is gross. Wrong. Everyday I feel the need to skip it. I don't like to eat during the hour of five. I wait, until six.

5:55. The time. I feel threatened by the time as if the power of the fives combined could kill me. As if there's a risk of time standing still, and shoving me forever into the world of 5:55. Like I'd never again get to feel the release of six o'clock.

I hate five. It's painful and disturbing. Five is wrong, inadequate. It's uneven. Five is fractured, it's half of everything, never whole.

This morning, I woke up at five.

Far From Me

365 Days of Creativity

day fifty nine

Sleep;             

Your eyes are closed

         and tightly

                 squeezed

to shut the light

         too bright

you whisper

         reach for my hand

it's rough and cold

         too alien

     for you to hold

         pushed away,

                  I understand

If eyes were closed

my lids like yours

I too would shy

                         away from          ice.

Your dreams stay 

                   quiet

Your lips lay

                  closed

Your skin so 

                friendly

but I, too bold

         shall sit and

                     wait

       shall stay for

                    days

while thoughts so

                    easy

hold 

you

close

Immortality

365 Days of Creativity

day fifty eight

Immortality

She smacked the camera out of my hand.

I scoffed, "What?"

"Don't take my picture."

I chuckled and raised the camera to my eye again. She hit it askew once more. I tilted my head and challenged her. "What is your problem?"

She shook her head. "Nothing, just don't."

"Don't what?"

A glare.

I turned to take a photo out of the window. The soft rocking of the train made my picture blurry. I sighed and turned off the camera, giving up. The day was overcast anyhow. Solid clouds of grey rolled across the sky. Big waves of charcoal and dust fighting to conquer the big blue.

The train was speeding through fields of golden wheat that the light diminished to a less brilliant khaki. The horizon was jagged, with harsh mountains that cut into the sky, jutting and stabbing and clawing upwards. Everything was fighting against something else, trying to defeat that which allowed it to exist in the first place.

Her hair was brown, but stroked with red, as though a painter hadn't quite washed his brush before picking the next colour. The copper tones peaked through here and there, playing hide and seek with my searching eyes. The freckles dusted across her nose were barely darker than her skin, which was tan from the summer sun. It was fall now, and soon she would pale again. But winter was her season anyways. The cold brought out the sparks in her eyes. I could see her now, her head resting on my knee as we sat by the fireplace. We'd listen to jazz and indulge in hot cocoa, laughing as a young pup snapped at the sparks from the fire.

But there was no such place. And she was no such girl.

"Why are you staring?" Her hazel eyes bore into me, sharpening from the dull, day-dreaming trance.

I smiled, "What do they say? Take a picture, it'll last longer? Well I'm not allowed such a photo, so forgive me for resorting back to face to face admiration."

"You read too many books," she rolled her eyes, and for a second her lashes splayed upwards, and I realized why men fell for the batting of them. "What do you mean?" 

She sighed, as if this conversation had already been had many times in her head, "I mean, you read these fantasy stories about beautiful lands and beautiful women and beautiful love, and you get lost in it. You forget that life isn't like that. And don't give me that look," she stopped me, as I was preparing to object, "I'm telling the truth and you know it. You just don't want to face it. You don't want to face reality, so you bring your flowery words and artsy practices back from your novels and try to make this place like one of your stories. But you've got to realize, that's all they are, is stories." 

She was right. I knew she was right, "But what's so wrong with that?"

"You can't spend your entire life wishing you were somewhere else, someone else."

"But why? Why can't I want the world to be a beautiful place?"

"You have to see it for what it is first! You have to realize how things are, before you can make them how you want them to be. How do you expect to take the photo you want, if you don't have anything to take a photo of?" Her copper strands were teasing me with glimpses as she shook her head, like a can-can dancer lifting a hem for a loyal customer, "You can't just make something real, without having something to make it out of."

"That's not true! What about art? What about stories themselves? There are whole worlds built from nothing."

"No, not from nothing. From words. From language. You think your writers didn't study words before they used them to write? You have to know the world you live in before you can change it."

"I know where I live," I mumbled. Her words were disheartening because they were true. I don't like logical people, they have a way of making themselves seem right. "But you're not."

She looked at me, puzzled, "What?"

I raised my eyes from my lap, "You're not right. I can live in a fantasy world, because this is my fantasy world. I'm going to look at things any way I want, and try as you may, with words you wield like weapons, I'm not going to stop. If you want to see everything in a bland and boring way, that's your prerogative, but don't try to bring me down to your lowly level of living, where magic cannot exist, because people like you won't let it."

Her eyes did not change. They didn't widen with shock, or open with realization. In fact, she was smug, and quite so, because I had just confirmed everything she stated. That was alright though, let her be pleased in her painful world.

The sky was darkening now, the line between the ferocious mountains and the cloud covered sky was blurring, as they faded down to the same colours.

I turned to her again, determined to know something, "Why can I not take your photo?"

She searched my face, perhaps looking for a sign of a gag or joke. Apparently finding none, she spoke, "Because, to be captured in a photograph or portrait, is to be made immortal for who you were at that moment." I was puzzled, and she saw, so she continued. "How sad it is, to live forever on earth in a picture frame, eternally remembered as that smiling man, or that crying woman, but never being able to change. Never getting to be sad when you wish, never being able to laugh when you wish, because that person holding the camera, decided to press the shutter at that exact second. What if you were a lonely person, and your heart was full of sorrow, and you lived your whole life trying to find someone to relate to, but someone got a picture of you at the exact moment you grinned? Even one photo is a photo too many, for it may immortalize you as someone you never really were."

And as she explained this to me, I realized she was not logical. She did not believe in anything she told me about my books, she did not hate art, or fantasy;

For she too, was a dreamer.