To: The Global Artistic Community. RE: You.

Please stop. Please. You are killing me with your art and your self expression and your plumbing of feelings and your search for meaning and truth. Please stop it.

It hurts. I am an artist too, and what you do- it attracts me. I cannot help myself, I cannot turn away, I have to look and gaze and experience what you have done. And it hurts me. On the inside I am blind, confused, sore, raw, and I cannot confront what is there without flinching.

Please stop. If you are really the loving, feeling community you are..you will heal me. Or give me time to heal. You will put down your pens and your pencils and keyboards, your cameras and your paintbrushes. You will let me scab, and heal, and grow a new self. And then I shall be ready for your introspection and your feelings and your pretensions and your elegant language, and I will be able to approach it and join in and be able to wring meaning out of it, and we shall all be the greater for it.

But.

You will not stop.

The world is a machine, a corporate process that consumes, changes, recycles, spits out. everything. nothing left untouched. And you, you artists, you feelers, you introspective thinkers; you are part of this machine. No individual can make a change on you, unless it is a streamlining of the industrial process by which you operate. And, above all else, no individual can make you stop. It is as if I had opened up my window, stuck my head outside, and yelled, "Please World! Stop your orbit of the sun! Stop your rotation! Slow down, be still, if only for a few moments that I may catch my breath!"

That will not happen. It can not happen. But it is what I need.

But, it must be confronted, just because you need something to happen is no guarantee or reason for its happening. Or even the possibility of its happening.

"This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine.."
- I Cannot Remember Who Wrote This

"Everything I make is trite, and cheap, and a waste of paint, of tape, of time."
- Bright Eyes, Waste Of Paint

"If I were to write something that truly captured all that I think and feel about the world, it would probably be in all capitals, one word, probably not one you'd find in dictionaries, something along the lines of, EEEEEEEEEEERRRRYYYAAAAAAFEABHCDAKBJNAEAEGOGAEHUAGOHU!!!"
- Walter Mongin, To: The Global Artistic Community. RE: You.

id bring my camera with me

We were dead, no brains left in our heads
Just wandering around, taking pictures of a broken God
But it was still far greater than we could mention

And some of us wept, and some of us slept
And some embracing living forever

I am weak, but I can control myself. I am weak, but I am stronger than you. I want to die, but I will live forever. I am surrounded by lies, but I will speak the truth. I am tired, but I can dream while I am awake. I will move mountains, and I will drink seas. I will scrape the sky with my hand, and I will warm my feet in the earth. The wind cannot blow me down, and space can not burn my skin. I am invincible. I am a giant. I am God's child.

You will not defeat me now, you will never defeat me, and you have not defeated me in the past. I will destroy whoever I do not love, and I will love everyone. You can not change who I am, you can only accept it.

I will breath in the dusk, and exhale the dawn. Do not fear; the dark will not hurt you, and the light will not blind you. You are freer under my protection than you were ever before.

I feel the want to destroy, but I will turn to the need to create instead.

I am nothing; I am everything.

I am-

You Are The Light Within My Eyes (Darling, Do Not Blind Me)

You are the bones within my legs
(Darling, do not break in me, do not let me down)
You are the wind inside my lungs
(Darling, breathe in me, buffet me around)
You are the decay inside my cells
(Darling, please wait to grind me down)

[You are all I need to live
And You are why I will someday die
You will always give and give
While I will accept, and cry, and cry]

You are the chemicals in my brain
(Love, do not twist my moods)
You are the food within my belly
(Love, do not make me sick)
You are the thoughts making up my mind
(Love, do not leave me so far behind)

[You make me who I am
And define who I am not
You give me no middle ground or choice
My will is filled with rot]

You are the impulse telling me to jump
(Dear, do not smash me)
You are the feeling telling me to run
(Dear, do not exhaust me)
You are the things that belong to no one else
But I cannot call my own
(Dear, do not leave me)

A Story About Love

The light penetrated into the house; it forced its way in through the windows and lit up the rooms with a light that only served to make it easier to not trip, and did nothing to illuminate the spirit of the place. He was sitting at the kitchen table (actually, a card table he had found in a neighbor's garbage pile) waiting, when he heard a step on the porch stairs, and the door creak open. He got up and opened the door to the stairs, and as he caught sight of her she froze. The light seemed to pin her to the wall, accentuating her paleness and the lines on her face.

"What'd the doctor say?" She stared at him. He asked again, and the focused look in her eyes broke; "Oh, um..Can I come down there?" He moved out of the way and she finished descending the stairs.

"What's the news?" She looked at him over her shoulder as he began to shut the door. "No, leave it open."
"Why? What's wrong?"
"I- I'm leaving." He stared back at her in something between disbelief and uncomprehension.
"I- I don't have long to go, and...I need to live." She walked into the bedroom and swiftly packed the suitcase standing by the door. "I love you, you know that, but..I need see and do as much as I can before, well...Before I can't any more. And I need to do it alone."

He sat down suddenly at the table, seemingly stunned or concussed. She walked back out holding the suitcase. "I left your half of the money on the nightstand.." He stared dumbly at the floor. "Darling, don't make it be like this, can't you tell me you love me and goodbye one last time?" Her eyes began to moisten as he continued to silently stare down the floorboards. She walked over, kissed his forehead, and murmured, "I love you sweetie." There was no reply, and after a moment she said, "Bye.." and walked over to the stairs and ascended them to the outside world. As the front door shut, the light seemed to dim even further.

With the way he was holding his head in his hands, it was hard to tell who was dying faster.