If I can tell myself that I am
Just good enough for passing,
Then each sunrise won’t grate
Like a challenge given.
Each afternoon won’t numb like
Vaulting through apathetic miasma.
Each sunset won’t philander like
The longest leg of any journey.
Each midnight won’t deteriorate into
A battle for every breath.
I could sleep with my eyes closed
And my heart open.
And wake with the whisper of crystalline waters
Carrying me towards a shimmer dusted shore.
∞
JW ©2018
“…and the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started,
And know the place for the first time.”
~ T.S. Eliot
Afloat without enough words to weave a safety net.
That’s how most discourse feels, as of late. The stagnant attempts to find some respite in light platitudes and commentary. One wrong word is one unraveling knot–spoken hastily–undoing all progress made. The catch is spilled into the ink black waters, confused and flailing, pathetically fierce.
I am failed at fishing. I did not cast my net far enough. It battered the boat helm and eventually jammed the rudder. So now, I can’t steer, much less fish.
But I continue to float.
We all come to the same place, eventually. That purgatory in the calm open. Many dive in and tread water together, but I can only look over the side of my vessel and question how cold the waters feel. My hesitation might be construed as prudence. Or stiff discipline. I’d rather see it as a survival instinct. Hypothermia is a motherfucker. Better safe than soggy.
But the problems with empty boats and frayed netting are the same as lack of courage. And safe now does not guarantee safe later. A rogue wave could capsize the boat. A gang of floating marauders could seize the vessel. The waters could shallow and tear rents in the bow. Or I could finally succumb to the madness of empty and dive overboard. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, nothing lost that wasn’t found in the first place.
It’s fruitless to be so scared. It’s directionless to float without a working sextant. Whatever shore I’m meant to discover won’t come to me. It’s out there, across miles of glass and diamond. That missing block in my sternum that calls me out into the ocean.
Without a map.
Or a compass.
Or my sustenance.
Or my true north.
Afloat in the obsidian deep of Wherenever.
JW ©2018
I want to believe.
But you make it hard, what with your two sided mouth
And your multi-dimensional passages,
And the idea that original sin is somehow all on me and never on you,
Even when your pants are down…
Even when my chest is pressed to the floor.
Somehow, you still manage divinity
As you brandish the reed that tears open flesh,
And cast your recriminations on my shoulders as if I should be so lucky
To look up just long enough to catch a glimpse of hope,
Before you decide I’m not worthy your salvation.
But who the fuck told you I needed your consent
When I see what you do with power and sanctimony
When I hear your truths that ironically manage to reek of sacrilege,
When you command I bow to you,
And I reply where you can shove your scepter.
No, I want to believe…
In divine love and grace, in the blessed,
In a salvation that is blind to pigment or facade,
In an intrinsic spirituality that embraces me
With no regard to my human errors
Or the seeded sin I carry in my involuntary DNA.
I need to believe in a Power that didn’t preconceive
Me as a tempestuous toy with circuitry
Created merely to appease your whims
Nothing more than a silent (but grateful) fucktoy
Who requires periodic breaking.
I want to believe,
In an all-knowing and unseen,
But I cannot believe in anything that creates
Both our souls with one breath
Before handing you the keys to my undoing.
Before giving you the bullets to your gun.
I will not believe in anything that exalts you.
And I pray I break you when I fall.
JW ©2018
“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
I’ve sat countless times, looking to create. Stiffled by too much to say all at once, which bottlenecks into blocks I can’t chisel through. I told myself, if nothing else, I’d at least knock out a poem. And I have.
But no one looks for poetry.
I DO have deadlines to make. This year ahead is not completely uneventful. I will be a featured author in the 2018 anthology, Ladies and Gentlemen of Horror. I was requested to read again at this year’s Fright Flight in Portsmouth. It won’t be the year to conveniently slip into oblivion, even though it often feels like I should. I have opportunities to grab.
But I’m waffling in uncertainty. All writers second guess their voices. I fear mine has succumbed to incurable laryngitis. What happens if all I can do is scratch out a poem here or there? The world waits for new stories… but I worry those stories are not the ones I have to tell.
It’s Women in Horror month. A yearly reminder that I’ve contributed little of note thus far. I’ve been proud, and excited, for the opportunities I’ve been given. I don’t think I’ve botched them. But I look at the projects I want to see grow wings and fly, and I’m not sure how to make it happen. As long as they are cocooned safely away, no one can reject them.
Have I mentioned that the most important characteristic of a true writer is astounding bravery? Because this shit is scary.
I haven’t completely given up. I’m not trying to be some incredible force of literary dynamics. I don’ think that’s what I can best offer anyone. That doesn’t mean I want to be dismissed, or brushed aside. It simply means I want to give my readers a somewhat different experience. Whether or not I make them really think… I want to know they’ve been grateful. I want them to be happy they spent that time with me. I cannot refund minutes. Hopefully they won’t wish that I could.
We all stumble. I’m not completely without footing. I just hope to regain it before I completely disappear.
Last year, I neglected to keep my blog updated. The year wound down this way for me…
Last October, I participated in my third Fright Flight reading. I read War Dance, my ferrets-beats-jackalope horror short that appeared in the Western Legends anthology, Unnatural Tales of the Jackalope back in 2012.
Around Halloween last year, my story, ALL WILL TURN TO GRAY appeared in Smart Rhino Publications most recent anthology, Zippered Flesh 3. You might remember that I have stories in the first two, as well. I also appeared in Smart Rhinos Insidious Assassins. (Not all last year, of course, but in the process of neglecting my blog updated, I’m also behind on my publications page.)
The new Zippered Flesh includes incredible contributions from greats such as William F. Nolan, Graham Masterton, and the late Jack Ketchum, as well as many others. I am honored to be in such amazing company. You can pick up a copy of it HERE. Trust me, it’s worth it, and I’m not saying that just because I’m in there.
Another wonderful surprise was the return of the first publisher to give me a shot. THE WORLD OF MYTH relaunched on Christmas Eve, 2017. Not just with a brand new issue, but the complete archives of all their past issues. This includes everything I’ve contributed as well. I encourage you to check out the ezine at length. If you’d like to read my latest contribution, LOVE ME, LOVE MY ALPACA, you can find the link to it on my contributors page.
So, that’s where I’m at. I still have a rough first draft of a novel in the wings, a growing collection of poetry, and my Beelzebacon novella that need my attention. I so badly want them all to find homes. They’re my children. I love them.
I want you to love them, too.
Until next time,
Jezz
I’m here, but I’m not,
A whisper in the corner,
Faceless synapse and empty electronica,
Less effort and all memory.
JW ©2018
Memoirs of a Midnight Masochist 