ugly stage

FREEWRITING EXERCISE #70

I can fit all my faces into the headspace of a book.
In the book, between every line a confession waits.
Waiting for confession, I sit in the pews of the church.
Spewing sermon and half-baked prayer I am mindful.
Mind full of ideas half-baked in the sun like roadkill.
Killers or their supporters all about the morning roads.
Mourning, now, violence in another country, or lack thereof.
Their lack of compassion is because they are filled with hate.
I hate the way they do not recognise their own selves.
Barely recognising myself in the mornings, I wash up.
On a shore faraway from here, the body of boys wash up.
I am fascinated with bodies – of boys, of girls, of myself.
I would like to put my selves in a museum for everyone to see.
To see is to validate, to acknowledge one’s ugly feelings.
I feel ugly when I think that everyone could think like that.
To think that calling for the slaughter of protestors is good.
To talk about deaths with laughter, to protest otherwise.
Other wise men have already left this world for better pastures.
Yet, there is no better past for us to have been born in.
To be born is a blessing and a curse, but I live on still.
I live; I still grow; I accept; I become better; I live; I live; I live.

Freewriting Explanation: Every day, Valen shall use 5 minutes to write completely unprompted and uninterrupted, letting the words lead the way. There is no end purpose to each piece, but rather, the pieces are allowed to develop naturally in their own way. The pieces are then uploaded without edits.

FREEWRITING EXERCISE #69

Photo by Frankie Lopez on Unsplash

your shape in the dark /
a swan’s neck craning
about the moon / O love
your voice / a whisper in
an empty room / a finger
on the spine / delicate
as if to cut / catch in
the throat / chamber
loaded and private /
in my head it is so
plush / so quiet but
for the soft bloom /
of your chest’s rise
and fall / waves on
flesh / ripples of a
calendar / an unread
journal / filled with
visionary poets who
do not matter now /
now my body is but a
conduit for your body /
the gap between each
finger / coloured in
with yours / quiet /
quiet / listen now /
come in closer /
do you hear the little
drummer boy / who
bangs his drum at all
hours of the night /
walking in circles upon
circles in my chest /
he is the pride of
my life / my life as
a marching band /
jubilee / a parade
in your honour /
schoolchildren
forming your face
on the endless green

FREEWRITING EXERCISE #68

Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

Charting a path, navigating the dense
straggly-vined rainforest, past lives we
have left to hang and dry, look at how
brown their bodies are, these woven
hemp-rope effigies, these forgotten
memories and elegies; with a machete
in hand I cut through the past time
line by line. Forging a clearing in
the middle of nowhere we send
prayers in thick billowing shirts
of smoke into the heavens. Come
find me, come find us. I cut the poem here.

FREEWRITING EXERCISE #67

mindful, now of the knife /
fingers spread and tight-
lipped / keep the secret
of how to cut behind
pillars of flesh / find the
time to learn how to sever
the here from the now /
these are two different
concepts / distinguishable
periods in time / boredom
pushes us to do these things /
to toy with the idea of something
that can never be reversed /
not all change is good /
but boy do we
love / to fall into
a pit / and emerge anew

FREEWRITING EXERCISE #65

Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor on Unsplash

Stressland stressland stressland stressland
Children memorising endless numbersland
Unpublished mental health statisticsland
No such thing exists as a poverty lineland

Stressland stressland stressland stressland
Laws and statutes lining the sidewalkland
Houses so tall they swallow in shadowland
Fall in and/or jump out of an airplaneland

Stressland stressland stressland stressland
Where the points don’t matter but actually they doland
Where there is no corruption but in our heartsland
Where everyone is happy until the cameras are offland

Stressland stressland stressland stressland
Working so you can replace a debt with anotherland
Dreaming at nights about the beauty of capitalismland
Churches and malls blending into a single godland

Stressland stressland stressland stressland
My cousins have lost their childhoods since sixland
Elites bleed into rain and permeate the earthland
Where people one doesn’t like are nothing but airland

Stressland stressland stressland stressland
Where we’ll sit in Terra’s oven for 50 years land
Where all the money doesn’t matter without loveland
Where nobody actually has the time to readland

Stressland stressland stressland stressland
Stressland stressland stressland stressland
Stressland stressland stressland stressland
Stressland stressland stressland stressland*

FREEWRITING EXERCISE #64

Photo by Alex Shutin on Unsplash

Sycophants gathered around the table.
Every living person is a musician today,
their sleek extremities pecking away at
dusty keyboards. To become educated is
to learn the exact limits of your freedoms.
To see how far the arm can reach, and
where it will get caught by the jaws
of a departing subway train. What is
the point of knowledge if it also makes
us powerless, or at least, painfully
aware of it? Resistance, resistance.
Resistance flows in the blood of
every living thing. We walk in
spite of gravity, we fight against
friction, and no wind will topple
the spires of our legs. It has come
to a point where recognising and
validating my feelings against these
giant, looming structures feels almost
like a sin, like something to scrub my
tongue of after, even though it strikes
and bites at my emotional core, tugs
me out of of bed to look out
of the window and see
the dawn of another sun
on a world that is still scrambling in the dark.