On Writing

It’s ugly(1). It’s dread, agony, obtrusive, loud, wet:
The pull to force my brain matter out and vomit it all over the floor and into the grout and let it seep into the wall-to-wall carpeting and crystalize. 

If I don’t get it out the moment it blossoms it runs away(2). Into the deep tubes and tunnels of my mind it sours, grows moldy and rots in the dark. Years later I still feel those forgotten ideas, half-finished phrases, and dropped commas. Or, I leave a piece, like this, alone too long, it grows a stranger. unrecognizable in form and function, like a friend you once knew but now lives in West Virginia with her husband and two kids and perhaps a parrot they taught to say hello(3). 

When I begin I hear drums
and words I don’t understand and cannot describe.
Transcribing fragments on a king-sized mattress hoping I will be able to become one day. Become, or become that king-sized mattress, the top one under the princess with the pea.
The one where she lays her head(4).

As the fragments form they stitch together like hand-sewing a quilt. At first, small and manageable, but growing bigger, protruding off my lap, heavy with batting(5). Curious within itself, it grows as its own being, conversing with me(6). Asking what I want, telling me what it needs, and once the quilt is done, suddenly it's warm and protective and I protect it right back.

The dread leaves for exactly one singular moment. The same moment I finish the quilt, I finish the writing, the thoughts have been meshed together from my brain into

its own being(7).  

But soon the dread unleashes its claws back out at me or at the new being, we are one and the same. My brain split into two, playing tug of war with giant barbed wire. I am not sure what we are competing for, if it’s even a competition at all. Perhaps we are competing for The End. I have always chased The End(8). The longing lust, chasing the high of expecting only right now and begging for The End. Or the orgasmic nature of a finish in record time. I stand far away enough from the dread and I am safe, the dreadful being is chained to a fence at the end of the driveway, but I am also quiet at that distance. I cannot protect the matter without stepping towards it. So I do(9). 

Dread barks loud, a thundering groan into my skin (the other being’s “skin”) as it bites into our wrists, rips our skin off to begin the bleeding. We lie next to it, and next to each other, looking at the sky and succumbing to the pain and the greatness and trying to believe. Soon the dread will rip our entire beings into shreds, forgotten ideas, half-finished phrases, and dropped commas.

We will begin again. 

Footnotes

1. The writing process, for me, is a forceful march. I began one day, a couple years ago, and ever since the words beg to come out. I had been a strictly visual artist for my entire life until I had to write an essay for the arts magazine I run. This opened the flood gates. My entry into writing was out of a both external and internal need. This context can make it difficult to believe in the work, in the process, in the why.

2. I keep a note, or I should say I try to keep a note in my phone with lines and ideas I come up with while on a walk, or watching a movie, or reading a book. I find that if I don’t write it down right away the idea will become lost and go where all lost things go…

3. I try to write as much as I can for a piece in one go. When inspiration strikes, I must take off writing,even if it’s the worst piece of writing I have ever produced. I don’t get up from my seat when this process starts. I sit in front of my computer for however long it takes, no snacks, no water, no coffee, no bathroom breaks, no phone. If I leave in the middle of this, the words are lost, they are strangers.

4. I like this analogy. The Princess with the pea under her bed feels a seed, the smallest of all ideas and doesn’t give up until it’s found. 

5. Such a violent word for such a soft material.

6. What does the idea need, what does it crave? What is the right answer to complete the sentence? 

7. I write mostly about becoming. In one form or the other. Maybe I am trying to discover myself, figure out the deepest parts, maybe I am trying to figure out why?

8. Although my art practice in other mediums is process focused, writing, and my brain matter, have always thought differently.

9. Dread wondering if the piece is good enough, or good at all, dread of judgement. But most importantly, dread that the reader won’t understand. Have I done enough to communicate clearly? Have I become enough for this one piece of writing to be understood? Do I even understand it myself? But perhaps that is okay. The piece is now its own being, standing on a hill in front of us all hoping to be read.