You complete me

I have never painted but if I did, today, I am going to pull on the white linen shirt I have been saving up for mid-life prom, gather up all the colors in the paintbox and pour them into a bucket, dip my hand—elbow and all—stir the contents; lift the bucket and throw the mixture onto the empty canvas; and spend the rest of my day cleaning up.

All writing has been a Rorschach test of my days. Their interpretation, a verdict of my struggles. The plotlessness in the writing—what started out as an ode to laziness, incompetence, has grown deliberate, providential.

And talking about it—the process—has gone from self-centered to self-doubting. Am I doing this right? I wish I could tell you I don’t care. But I do. Not about it being right so much as it being true.

And what is true?

Everything that I know, but cannot be.

Writing is the bridge.

Every attempt at art is building a bridge to get to the other side. But just not any bridge. A baller of a bridge. A bitchslap in the face of artistic endeavors, human temporality, ephemera etc., bridge. A bridge so True in its falsity, it’s never complete.

I don’t know when I will be done with mine. I don’t know if I’ll ever be; both done and otherwise. But I know this. If at all I am done, I am going to run across the bridge, and soon as I get to the other side, I am going to burn it down.

Truth’s theatre, baby.

Art is a spectator sport; a congress of loneliness. For the artist to sacrifice himself for the art. For the art to offer itself to the artist. It’s the only way for the art and the artist to meet.

Of fire: the art, where did the flame come from?

Of ash: the artist, where did it go?