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.