As I writhed in a pool of tears, and blood dripped from two fresh wounds in my arm, my best friend looked me in the eye and said: you can’t keep doing this. It was the end of our friendship in the sense that our symbiosis would never be the same, but it was those five words that made me realise: all this time I’d been trapped in a loop of my own making. I’d find a way to make it stop, I’d feel better, I’d live awhile, I’d stop recognising myself, I’d tear it all down, I’d see that I was still broken, I’d carry out some fragmented symbol [minor fractal] of my death.
I couldn’t keep doing that, he was right. I had to get help. I had to find a way to make it stop.
I once heard that madness was doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
‘Nothing more than.’
‘Nothing to the exclusion of everything else.’
Is familiarity to be trusted?
I have memories that are mine yet don’t hold familiarity.
There are roads that feel familiar yet run places I can never have been.
No Exit reads a sign, roughly hand-painted. I am graffiti on a brick wall.
I’ve been here before. There’s never an exit.
Time mustn’t be allowed to pass until I’ve solved this. Every week strips me of more flesh and wellness.
Some hidden part of me shows me how to write a book, shows me how to draw a line between an aspect of myself and a protagonist I create. It’s ongoing.
Wandering lanes.
I feel good if a piece ends on a number like 333 or 888. 1234 is okay, and 2000. Mirrors, like 3003: maybe.
People don’t know what to make of my work, but then, I don’t know them so I shouldn’t judge.
Everything meticulously worded.
Confession through the mask of a character. I never knew what I was doing.
[you can’t keep doing this]
I’m trying something out here. Looking for patterns, rhythms and connections in journaling and beauty in fragments. I’m looking for the point at which communication breaks down between writer and reader, where intrigue fails and where the key to subjectivity may lie. I join personal beats with character perspectives and notes for plot, as ever to play with the boundaries between fiction and reality. I’m looking for the line to ride.
The photograph in the header is my own, taken of yesterday’s Intergalactic bath.
C.R. Dudley 