i’d run away if i could. take a knapsack and a briefcase of my favourite books and step away into the night.
such is the life of virginia woolf’s deepest fever dream—one of that with her own space to create universes and breathe life into clay, one with control of her heart and hands, one with paper cuts and pencil callouses, eyes worn out by words in candlelight and hallowed throat sore from screaming to the stars. what are we but the shells of our broken wishes?
on the first day, the lord created light, and saw that it was good. before, there was only darkness. someone i knew once told me that the only things worth knowing are only found in the shadows that have existed long before everything else, primordial and constant. she had fallen in love in the dark, the burning kind that destroyed itself and blinded everyone else.
pity the fool, they say. when pain falls to those who know, pity those who don’t. the day i learned to hold a pencil was the day i learned what a sore hand was. the day my fingers learned to draw music out of a cello was the day they learned to bleed. my art has always come from pain and the desperate need to feel and to fill the hole that bleeds my soul. hoc illud est quod est, it is what it is.
maybe if i disappear into the night, the most original thing, i’ll create out of something besides pain. maybe i’ll exist in a bubble where i can create something out of love, writing ballads about the laughter that forces its way out of my throat and leaves constellations of blood on the grass.
maybe i’ll learn proper punctuation, and a semicolon can put together the scattered sentences and fragments that make up the cracks of my whispered dreams.
What Dreams Are Made Of by Chiu-yi Rachel Ngai - Arkansas, U.S./Hong Kong