///CYCLES///

Like ketamine, I'm a dissociative. I bore of the norm easily, I never feel as if I quite fit in, I dissociate from society. Often I dream of escaping somewhere in complete solitude, where I don't have to talk to anyone, just leaf rustles and wind gusts, bird songs and rain drops. Staring contests with clouds with eyes non-existent so as not to make me feel uneasy.

Often I feel like I need to be cut off -- to get up and leave to a place unknown, a place completely foreign to me, where no one, no place is familiar. Comfort removed from beneath me, so I can make a new bed, all over again. But better this time.

I say LA is home because it is most comfortable. Everything is at my fingertips. I don't even have to leave the house to buy toilet paper. A replacement eye cream is delivered to my doorstep in less than a day. There is a flavor, a culture, a person, a party, a show, a gallery, a shop to fulfill any desire, whenever I wish. Everything is abundant, plentiful, overwhelming, excessive.

But maybe it's time I let go.. alienate myself from comfort.

To challenge myself, to learn something new.

I'm sick of this general feeling of stagnancy,

this feeling I'm disappointing myself,

and the inevitable depression attached.

I have all these talents, all these dreams..

yet I cannot find it in myself to see anything through.

What is it that I really need?
How can I get my perseverance back?
I want to finish something.. anything.
Cos so far I have nothing.

///DREAMBOY///

"There are people that make art, and there are people that watch people make art."

There is only myself to blame for letting my art fade from daily existence. The only art I'd experience was the seldom show or museum, or witnessing a friend create theirs. Meanwhile I was rolling around in my own inner turmoil and self-loathing, because all I wanted to do was make art, but I just couldn't muster up the motivation to do so. I let external situations batter me, convincing myself I no longer had it in me, that I was dead inside.

"What else is there to do but make art?"

Entire days and nights used to be spent drawing, painting, writing, making jewelry. I would wake up every morning and just do it - it was constant creation and active meditation. I've so missed being in that mindspace where your passion for the creation at hand renders you free, and you just let go of all inhibitions and overthinking and just create. Everything flows seamlessly from your soul to your mind, through your arms and out your hands, without faltering.

"I would love to see your art." "I want to see more art from you."

My one friend, a brilliant photographer who captures immaculately the scenes which the untrained eye fails to see, encouraged me one very drunken and damn near blind night telling me I have to wake up at 6am and make art till 3am, everyfuckingday. To just do it. And if I'm broke, to steal paintbrushes if I need to. To just fucking make art - all the time, by any means possible. It had been a long, long while since anyone had semi-scolded me in that way about my art, and damn I needed that.

Another friend, an abstract painter whose consistency and use of color I greatly admire, tells me all the time she wants to see more of my work. I keep posting old stuff, but now I've run out and am realizing the old is old - it's about time I make some new. My mind is anew, my life has changed for the better, my heart is healing, and all of my art supplies are waiting to be touched again.

And the dreamboy, the real unreal painter, the one I can listen to talk all day and all night about art, the one whose paintings move me in a way I've not felt before. Each of his brushstrokes is with specific intention, each color mixed evinces a deeper feeling, and each piece as a whole tugs at my heartstrings everyfuckingtime. We speak about various painters and obscure photographers, the meanings behind inanimate objects and the unique portrayal of isolated body parts. We fall in love with books and get excited over musicians. We share poetry and prose, and read it aloud. We balance our health with toxicity and our chronic depressive states with crooked smiles. We're androgynous in our style and appreciate each other's bodies as they are. I could look at him forever.

He asks me what I'm going to do today.

I tell him I want to make art.

He tells me I should.

And so I do.

///RIP///

If birth and death are nonesuch,

if time is merely a manmade concept,

then a birthday can be a deathday,

and a deathday can be a birthday.