It is
obvious; a person who creates, needs inspiration. There is no formula to
creativity or math or even errors. Much like a tan, if you live out in the sun
and out of the shade, very soon your skin gives way, it wrinkles, hardens and
tans. Creativity thus is not for the fair skinned and the delicate to touch.
Air conditioning cannot be an artist’s way of life.
I
struggle. Yes I do. Unfortunately for me, I am born into a family of air
conditioning, carpeted floors and scotch. The struggle has been to find
inspiration, to have some sun beat down on me and darken my skin, to rough it
out in the wilderness in the midst of plague and war. I grew up wishing I had a
sad story to tell, wishing there was a secret in my life that I was yet to
uncover, that my home would suddenly be struck by disarray or that I would be
kidnapped by aliens…as you can see, I grew desperate. There was no poetic
injustice that offended me.
Would
this big bad world deprive me of my true inspiration by giving me a content
life? The questions burnt my brain as I would imagine sweet unhappiness strike
me down and how the words would then flow over the blank pages that sat before
me. Oh, mischievous discontent, how you escape me!
Imagine
a room in the middle of a hurricane. That is what it would have looked like
inside my head. Papers flying, ink pots smashing against the wall, a flickering
bulb from the ceiling swaying first and then tearing off of its wire and
cracking on the floor, chairs flinging themselves against the brittle window.
Me, standing in the middle of it all; with sweaty palms, desperate for one of
the objects to knock me out so that I could wake up from my unconsciousness in
a different life with a different story. But the hurricane always left me
untouched, my brain would tire and I would sleep, completely conscious of my
unpoetic life.
That
suddenly one day turned to poetry.
I woke
up from the hurricane one day and realized that I’m in love with a unicorn. I
can write my poetry with his silver ink.
