fakefakefake
that pull, that feeling, that electricity that runs through me, everything I carry moving into my fingertips, my hands heavy, charged, burning, like I’m under a spell, a compulsion, and i’m reaching for a pen, reaching for a keyboard, reaching for anything i can use to put the letters down to make words, to build worlds, and anyone who makes art in any form can tell you exactly what that pull feels like and how it’s something beyond human, otherworldly, almost supernatural, magical, and i feel it, and only because i feel it do i keep going,
because when i look around me i feel so out of place, “in my sixth essay this month, I’ll discuss -” and hits me like a fucking brick to the face every single time because what the fuck are you talking about you’ve written six essays this month, the way I have to rack my insides to produce even a single coherent piece of prose every four weeks is so thoroughly violent that I do not think I could actually physically withstand to endure it six times a month,
unfortunately i cannot spin my grief into gold like one of those famous drunk and beautifully melancholic poets, and i know this to be true about myself because my grandmother died two days ago and i’m sitting here scraping at my deepest parts in order to offer up something sentimental, but instead i come up empty handed despite the fact that i know they say grief is stored in the hips because the psoas’ link to the adrenal glands and the location of the sacral chakra make it so, and i know there is some metaphor out there ripe for the picking to be made about womb and women and suffering but unfortunately i can’t reach it right now because i’m so disconnected,
i sit here for hours and try to come up with something meaningful but i can’t focus, my lower back hurts, my hips are tight, i feel the grief and i hear the voices telling me that i am an imposter, a fraud, a vulgar and antisocial bitch with a keyboard who needs therapy and medication and not to write a fucking newsletter, and lately they are not whispers, they are screams; taunting, loud, dripping in sarcasm, reminding me that if i were truly an artist i would be able to excavate some kind of meaning from this moment,
but then i feel that pull, that yearning, that magnetic attraction between my hands and the keys and the way my long nails go reaching for the letters faster than i can even think, and i know it’s real, there is this thing that lives inside of me and it’s struggling to be free right now, shaking the bars and rattling the chains, i cant find the key, i cant open the door, i cant let it out
i came across a quote that said something like “it’s hell writing, but it’s hell not writing, the only tolerable state is just having written” and i’ve never read anything more true in my entire life, and i wish i was a better writer, i wish these words meant anything to anyone besides me, i wish i could refer to myself as a real artist or creative, i wish i was prolific, i am a fake fake fake, but this thing inside of me is so real and this is my attempt to set it free, and i am failing, this back and forth, i continue to stand up but my legs are weaker every time i rise to the occasion,
yet my hands persist



I’m sorry for your loss.
Your voice is heard all the way over here. It’s one that I look forward to.
I for one am so glad you write. Yours is the only email I ever open as soon as I see it. I look forward to reading you. And your grief is enough. You don’t need to scrape metaphorically at the gentle petals of grief. ♥️