Suddenly, through the cracks in the asphalt, paving and brickwork: water. It’s raining upwards; the city is crying. Drowning me and everyone like me in its tears. My hair, my clothes, my skin: soaked. My eyelashes beaded with droplets.
You can only write when you allow the world outside to slow down, because as it does the world inside quickens. You’ve got to be free to experiment, free to flow between and through expectations. See what is there and not what you think you’re going to see. Patching up the gaps in perception with imprints and stories already told.
Something has changed with the door. It must’ve, else this wouldn’t be happening. Appending. Notes affixing themselves all around the frame like moments of inspiration on a mood board. I catch one of them before it is usurped by another:
With both of us in remission, the spark has gone.
Perhaps that’s why they tried to keep us apart – we were always seeking that powerful surge created by two madnesses synthesized. Encouraging it. Making one another sick on purpose. But the door says no more.
A door can let you out or keep you in. I’ve no idea which is important here.
Behind the door lies pain. I am unable to imagine myself as anything other than inferior. Something weak to be taken advantage of, with no real agency of its own. If the notes on the outside of the door say anything at all, it is: nothing of any consequence.
It’s here again, the novel in my head. It comes to me once in a while, completely formed, until a memory of you comes to destroy it.
Chapter 11 comes up twice.
“There’s something timeless about the mediocrity of the story, no matter how many times I find myself inside it.” – From Star by Yukio Mishima. Also: “The poetry must never be conspicuous—its scent is only detectable when subtle.”
Friendships held together by silent disorders.
Friendships ended too soon – so many – by selfishness, miscommunication, death.
Friendships I long for but never obtain.
I’m healing. It doesn’t always feel that way, but I am. I see it in my paintings over time—day on day, even. Some days the mind only takes small steps, and those paintings are somewhat timid, unsure. But some days it is really apparent just how much progress has been made, silently, in the background. On those days the strokes are bold and clear.
I stick all the paintings to the door frame with tape. I squeeze the water from my hair, gather up the tear-soaked tissues and drop them into the waste bin. I’m going out. Out into the snow in a thick winter coat. I pull it tight around my waist and chest so that it might protect me from the bite of winter. Keep the heart warm.
I’m trying something out here. Looking for patterns, rhythms, connections in journaling and beauty in fragments. I’m looking for the point at which communications breaks down between writer and reader, where intrigue fails and where the key to subjectivity may lie. I’m freeing myself up. I join personal beats with character perspectives and notes for plot, as ever to play with the boundary between fiction and reality. I’m looking for the line to ride.
Header image source: Pixabay
C.R. Dudley 