On Writer’s Block

I write when it gets too difficult to feel. I’ll stare at the screen or the page, and feel paralyzed. Stuck. Confounded. I used to call this writer’s block, but that implies that there are no words here. Instead, my mind is like a tornado of words. Metaphors, paradoxes, and allusions are whipping through a storm of synonyms and syntax. Poetic devices battling each other to get out of the prison they reside in. I can’t even describe this reality without a loose metaphor (or two) falling through the hairline fractures of my skull. Just as I try to catch the words, they slip through the space between each of my fingers.

So when I tell you that I have writer’s block, please understand that I am lying to you. Forgive me, but I don’t know how willing you are to weather the storm with me.

Longer than I admit

I’ve pushed it away so deep down that it’s past my guts. Crunched it down below my feet so I can trample on it. At times, I float on it ever so softly, barely letting my heels graze its surface. Other times I stomp heavily, making the earth quake beneath me. But you see, it’s impossible to deny it. I’ve been exposed by a single person search party trained in illuminating the dark. She saw that I’m not as hollow as I want to be because you’ve left remnants that are nearly impossible to see unless you open me up and shine a flashlight into my chest cavity. There it is. There’s the switch that you’ve left on, slowing draining, and the only way I can turn it off is to reach in past the cobwebs and dust. I’ve stuck my hand inside, and there’s no pulling it out until I say so. I am here and I amready. I have been been ready for longer than I admit.

Take It All Back

Turning back the clock will never stop the series of events 

But the air will feel familiar to a decade ago 

I'll feel it again, but this time I'll step outside my body

I'll float up

Take a look at the grass where you stepped

Where she was buried

I'll speak to you through her and I'll find a way to breathe you in

Keeping you in my lungs forever.

Travel the world to pick up all the pieces of the things that have shattered 

I've always wanted to glue them together 

But the cracks will reveal that it's just my attempts

At holding together the atoms that are meant to be dynamic, spastic, and radical

I'll collect the pieces, put them in a drawer, and know you are there. 

Like no one is listening.

The soil has dried up. The life it's been holding is failing. One by one the leaves fall off.

 Next the branches dry up until they can no longer bend with the wind. When the storm comes it cracks. Splits. Opens its insides to show you that it has been rotting for years. But amidst the forest this tree was only but one. You're only but one. You can scream to the person beside you but they won't listen until you're dying, rotting on the inside. So cover your flaws and fill the holes in which the termites may escape because you're only as valuable as your exterior allows for. 

Present emails from a past ghost.

"If they ever decide to make a teenage coming of age film about us, it will definitely have a great soundtrack."




Some people like the opening lines the best, but I'll forever be a sucker for the closers.

Alchemy

If Frida said to be with someone who looks at you like you're magic, then it's time to start with the smoke and mirrors. It's not deception if you both believe it, and I've been believing for years.

I have felt them come and go, and I watch the lives they have respectively started. Rings, new life, new seas. You would think it would hurt, but it's mostly just relief. I don't want to wear the scars of guilt. I don't want to be the reason. Only two more scars left on my body that need to heal. The very first two. So don't buy that wives tale that states time heals all wounds.

Chainmail

The King turned into the fool, and they pointed their fingers and laughed. Their hands are porcelain white showing their privileged lives. The fool cried out to those who were once his subjects. He closed his eyes, and tried to wake up from the dream but it's not working this time. A royal robed in rat's filth, swearing our eyes are deceptive. But what the fool doesn't realize, is when you feel safe in your skin, not even the sharpest sword can pierce your armour.


So I'll let you take that stab you've been waiting for.

No, no, this won't be a sad song.

We are beings of logic. We need reasons, explanations, and understanding of the things we experience. We want tangibility.


We fear the abstract.


People are looking for an explanation that will fit neatly inside a box. They want me to wrap it up, package it, and tie it with a bow. Telling them that it just didn't feel right isn't satisfactory, but it's simply all I can give.


I never did like playing by the rules, anyway.

Famous last words.

"If there is one thing I know for certain, it's that I absolutely cannot live without you."

Pandora

So like the story goes, at the bottom of the box of all the bad things...there was hope. Without it we would not have the strength to fight. We could not conquer sickness, hardships, heartaches, losses, or our fears if we didn't have that 4 letter word. Something that is meant as a punishment or sorrow can actually be a way to remind us that hope was placed in that box, too.


There is light up ahead, and I don't have to run to it. Walking will get me there just fine. And I'll be able to smell the lilacs.

Bad seed.

Every apple tree has a bad one. Smooth on the outside, but get to the core and it's rotting.

Falling apart from the inside out. You won't see it until you break its skin. 

Together

I've got all my books lined up in a row. Hard covered, clean spine, alphabetized. I always have my bed made. The throw blanket at the end has been flattened. I've got the dishes done, and the plants have all been watered. Every antique find has been meticulously placed in a casual way. There is symmetry, balance, and all the right things in all the right places. I've got all these nice artifacts I've spent all this nice money on. If you would look at me you would think this girl has got it all together.

Casualty

If they say words are like knives, mine are like grenades.


The damage is away from me but the syllables fly back like shrapnel. I put up my shied and duck down. The scratches are only superficial, but I've always been a slow healer. Don't believe it? Take a look at my knee.

Aristocracy

I make a prince feel like a pauper, and a pauper feel like a prince.


I'm screaming that I'm the queen, with more than the mirror to convince.

On the Down Low.

Don't you get tired of trying to catch up? Holding your breath to remain subversive? Hunting the cool before it hunts you. Do you know who you really are?

Morrissey and Ian Curtis are taken already.

Subculture.

Subterranean.

Subordinate.



Living life on the down low.

So long.

We were standing back to back waiting for the whistle to be blown. On your mark, get set, go.


Rushing away from each other as fast as we could and sneaking glances over our shoulders. In the race together, but with different finish lines.

We ran for miles. Pounding hearts and beads of sweat rolling off our necks. You weren't wearing the proper shoes because you didn't have them now.  We both saw the end in sight and with steps to go we were pulled back. Retracted like a slingshot.


All this time running away from each other and we had to find out the hard way that this whole time our spines have been attached with a rubber band.

Non-Fiction

I met the devil Saturday evening. He lives in a lovely home in Etobicoke. I dined at his table for dinner. I was well fed and given wine to my heart's content from the women of the house, while he steered the conversations. 

After dinner he read my fortune. Told me I worried too much, and I would be financially  troubled, and that the man in my life didn't see me as a priority. 

He told me that North America was upside down. That men here weren't as strong as they should be with their women, and that he never did the dishes. 

When I felt the vomit rise in my throat, I excused myself. 

The moral of the story, kids? The devil can't tell a fortune worth shit, and patriarchy is thriving in hell.  

Writer's Block.

I told him that he makes me genuinely happy. The kind of happy where my anxiety subsides. The kind of happy where I can rest easy at night. The kind of happy where I'm no longer trying to shape a piece of steel with my bare hands.

He sincerely apologized for this, stating that now I have nothing to write about.

The Letter Series: Installation #2

My dear Jay,

You were never sure if you wanted to live in the past or the future. Romanticizing what was and what could have been, but never what is. I'm not sure you were ever in love with me. Sometimes I think you were simply in love with time. You were forever wed to your unutterable vision of my perishable breath. But your superficial wealth nor your fame can buy back what we had. Your clothes robed a poor, weak boy, and I've always told you rich girls don't marry poor boys. It's just not the way of things.

You gave up on your own dreams the moment you tried to fulfill mine, and now we're both left cold. Jay, you can't repeat the past. You must kill the dream. I'm not the same girl. Tom may not give me such passion as you, but he's safe. It's secure. You were fleeting the moment I took you in again.

Do not destroy the letters. Do not resent me. For yes, I have changed, and I don't want to break your heart again. With food in hand, I led a starving man. But you're getting thinner with age.

I'm sorry, Jay. I smashed things up and then retreated back into my vast carelessness, letting others clean up the mess I had made. I could do nothing other than destroy you, and you had no choice. You were made for me.

Love always,

Daisy Fay

Exchange

He sat on my couch and opened up his chest. Pulled back his ribcage; a fence guarding his prized possession. After some hesitation he whispered,"Since I've met you, dying no longer scares me."

Without hesitation, I whispered back, "And since I've met you, living no longer scares me."

"That was poetic."

And with that, we watched HBO and ate Skittles.