From One Survivor to Another
oh i forgot to mention
those writing awards i entered for at my school a few months ago
creative manuscript: 2nd place, $300 (posted this manuscript on here under the writing tag awhile back)
nonfiction essay: 3rd place, $50 (adapted a blog post from here haha)
essay on “your personal library”: 1st, no monies :*( (wrote about a “survivor’s library”, may post eventually)
i was kind of disappointed in myself actually. but my standards for myself are ridiculously high because most writers would be freaking out about getting $350 dollars in an industry where even getting $10 to cover printing and postage is a miracle. so i need to be better about that.
here
that other poetry post reminded me that i should write more
[trigger warning: death, murder, suicide, scars, gun violence, family abuse]
i am here because of accidents
the knock on the door at the last second
the phone call I made when no one was watching
my mother’s hands trembling around her pistol,
her low blood sugar preventing a cavern in my chest.
i am here because people saw something I didn’t—
a spark in my eyes while falling asleep in class
a smile marked by unease and long Ss words
sick, slice, soup, slimmer, slender, slack muscles,
an empty bottle.
i am here because teacher after teacher passed me,
pulling out the last assignment, coaxing my mind
fogged in sulfur death and effexor. they knew better
than to take me at face value.
i am here because I want to be—it’s not easy
to walk out of doors, or into people, and their connections
of saccharine sugar and bubbling smiles, all
while hiding your stretched scars.
i am here because of Emily Howell
and all of the bright concepts that died with her
when she was murdered, and, ten years later,
her still-here parents gave me the award for being
as hopeful, as buried in the shadows as she was.
i am here because her poem about her dog
and his winter fuzz whiskers
still hangs on my wall, smiling sun
and when I read it I sob thinking about where
her dog could be now.
i am here because pico de gallo is always worth
the bad breath the next morning, am here because
of spaghetti meatballs and sopping grease-wet pizza, I am here
because of pineapple bacon stir fry cooked crisp
between kisses. i am here
because of chocolate cheesecake devoured by hand, drinking
tomato juice and joking
about being an old fart.
i am here because it is much easier
to give up and wither
it is easier to never ask for any help
it is easier to stay inside this familiar shell
and scratch and burn and scream at nothing.
i am here because I like winning, and now,
after losing so much, i relish the greatest dream
of a life steeped in victories.
if it’s always like this, I can’t imagine the kind of fun
i’ll be having tomorrow
3/30/2012
[trigger warning: ableism]
The mention of TED in that last post just reminds me of the time they had the author of eat, pray, love give a talk. She basically went all white western greco-roman philosophy on the audience and said that creativity literally came out of nowhere. And that artists die early and go insane because they are driven by this societal pressure to succeed.
All I could think was, “Lady, are you shitting me? I’m an artist because it is literally the only way I can survive in the world. I’m an artist because I have dealt with horrible shit you can’t even imagine, and now I write about it so that ignorant fools like you can stop spreading around this bullshit.” But of course, she’s just a magical enlightened white woman conduit running around sucking in the benevolent creative spirits that skip over us every day.
Maybe artists die because I don’t know, the shit that fuels their creativity is also the shit that destroys them the most. We don’t all get book contracts to go fly around the world and be colonial and indulge in (steal from) other people’s cultures but never give anything of value back.
I will never read her book because that talk was just a slap in the face for everything i stand for as an artist.
Oh my god! That TED Talk was so awful! I remember watching it and thinking, “God, what an unthoughtful way to avoid being accountable for your art!”
Haha that’s the best way to sum it up. It was just so obvious from that talk that she’d never really had to struggle a day in her life. She really truly believed that art was some gift from mystical sages, not insight borne out of struggle. o_O
A Terrible, Towering Strength →
Here is my manuscript for this contest. There is nothing in the rules that says it cannot be shared, only that you can’t enter the same works in other school-sponsored contests. It’s stuff that I’ve posted before on here but some people may not have read it. It’s also been slightly edited, and I think the pieces work really well together in a triplet.
Trigger warning for some mentions of domestic violence, suicide, homophobia, child abuse, and child sexual abuse.
finished my story
and i made myself cry, wtf where did this come from?
[trigger warning for suicide, sexual abuse]
1. Read it out loud.
2. Read it out loud in a state of humiliation— read it for someone who scares you. Someone that you take seriously. Someone who, when they say, “that’s good,” you’ll believe them. Someone who, when they say, “that’s not right,” you’ll believe.
3. Imagine yourself writing for the writers you have loved— What if I told you to write something in the next twenty minutes, and Toni Morrison had to read it?
4. Drive people crazy— make them lose sleep for days.
5. Upset people — make them angry, scared, offended. Make people walk out of the room when you read.
6. Make the reader curious. Make them want more. You make a pearl by irritating an oyster.
7. Make them weep by first making them laugh. Make them laugh, then come in fast from behind.”
