So, there’s a dimension lodged between a fold in my brain matter.
It is a wild, untamed land that can at one moment be a boundless void, and at another, a dense jungle. Like something between Jumanji and Narnia, it has as many manifestations and descriptors as the art that is birthed from that internal plane of being. It is a place I always return to, a place I get lost in, and a place I often fear I might not return from.
Works are birthed from experiences, emotions, and beliefs. But, this is not all that they are. For me, they’re the result of various things falling into the hidden plane of the soul and eventually returning like bread cast into the sea. But instead of bread, information is thrown. Instead of mush, what returns is… something purer and more condensed than what was thrown in.
Something new.
Stream-of-consciousness
In high school creative writing class, I learned the name for what I had always done to access this dimension: “Stream of consciousness writing.” Rather than seeking to capture a specific memory, emotion, or idea, one just writes the very first thing on one’s mind. For me it felt like walking the shoreline of my pocket-dimension while picking up absolutely everything that stood apart from the sand.
Many things that I pick up clearly belong on the beach there: a shell, some seaweed, a piece of driftwood, etc… But usually, there’s one item that I stumble upon and immediately think “Well, this is different.”
I’d like to share with you now some stream-of-consciousness writing I did a year or two ago. Some of these are lines and some, stanzas. Some of these are nothing at all. Many of them will become poems some day, and just as many will be set back on the beach where they belong.
My only disclaimer is this: Brain’s are weird and statements that come into your head are often one’s you don’t truly believe. If something here makes you uncomfortable, just remember that it made ME uncomfortable first! The content here can be considered a poem if you’d like, buuuuuut this is the antithesis of editing and refining right here.
Stream of Consciousness Writing 1
Make every word dare importance
Take heart with you into battle and you’ll find yourself bleeding on the fore
He dances with lions but fears the rain.
No idea is worth dying for.
Feed your ego and You consume yourself
Cognitive dissonance is the gray-matter in the tv making faces at you.
Elohim and Adonis.
We take the too many prayers
Turn them into faith
And bank them for victories
Any smoke in the trees can become a sonnet
Or an epic tale
10 bodies on this floor
All of them stories to tell
None of them claim victory
And none will die, truly
I was betrayed by the world
(Your name here) is my revenge and rebuttal
Tears don’t become men,
But neither do beards
Make me into something I’m not
I will regret it, but you will be none the wiser
There was once a man named Jazz
He loved the sax and the sax loved him
They played together into fame and obscurity
Never once taken down a name
Tasting melodies for breakfast
And drowning their sorrows in song every night
You bite your lip, not that you have something you can’t say
But because your lips are chapped and you can’t control yourself
Don’t suffer warriors who compensate
For fear with drink, whores, and cigarettes
The Poetry of Ants 