how do I begin my day
your alarm clock goes off
you scream internally
you wake up
you are conscious
you scream internally
your world begins fuzzying into shape
you are real once again
you rise and sensations pour into your mind
you rise and the world pours hot molten lead into the cast of your body
you pick out an outfit, any outfit, it doesn’t matter, the world will not remember your outfit
the world will not remember you
you shower
you are clean
you are washed of the inherent filth of the night that the day makes clear
you mentally prepare yourself to socialize
you practice your phrases
you put on your armor
you recede into the shell that is held in place by others
you brush your teeth
you pick up your keys and walk out of the house
you are cold
you are still in your car as it warms
you are frustrated with your shell as it warms
your shell becomes malleable
your shell moves down the streets to your destination
you sing such beautiful music inside your shell
you park in a crowded lot
you get out of your car
you stop singing
the world silences you once again

what is the dumbest idea I’ve ever had
you have lots of dumb ideas
your ideas are the product of your place and time
every idea is the dumbest idea
you thought it’d be a dumb idea to write in the second person
you thought it’d be a dumb idea to construct a scroll
you thought it’d be a dumb idea to experiment
you thought it’d be a dumb idea to subject your english teacher to this torture
you thought it’d be a dumb idea to break out of your shell
you thought it’d be a dumb idea to try something new
you were wrong

what made this idea dumb
you know what made it dumb
you know why you were up at 1 am on a monday morning writing
creating something new in the world
you cannot put it in words and yet you feel the futility flowing in the thick coagulate marrow of your bones
the futility is the antienergy that kills you all, that silences you all
you will die someday
your work will be for nothing
that is what made this idea dumb

what is the best idea I’ve ever had
you have lots of great ideas
your ideas are the product of your place and time
every idea is the best idea
you thought it’d be a good idea to write in the second person
you thought it’d be a good idea to construct a scroll
a neverending flow of thought
you thought it’d be a good idea to experiment
you were not wrong
your best idea was when you explored your shell
your best idea was when you explored your limits
your best idea was when you ripped off your muzzle and barked at the world
your best idea was when you grasped at the shells of others
your best idea was when you chose to help others rip off the muzzles that silence them
the world will not silence you today

what made this idea great in my mind
you have found it
the secret of the universe is in your hands
you have touched it
you have held it in your hands
you have ripped it apart and kicked it and thrown it in the dirt and abandoned it and
it has always come back to you
this idea was not great in your mind
this idea was great
and it was in your mind

can I connect the dots that lead me to this idea
your world is always changing
you are always changing
everything is changing all the time
you flow from place to place, never stable, never still
you notice the change
you touch the change
you want to communicate this change to the world
you want to be new
you want to be the change
you want to unsilence the world that has silenced itself

describe my first successful creative act
on april 25th 1997 you were born
in a small texas town
on a military base
you took your first breath
you took your first gasp
you just took your millionth gasp
you created something for the first time in your life
you created a force
you haven’t stopped creating yet

was anyone there to witness or appreciate it?
your mother was there
your father was not
your doctor was there, your nurse was there
the room was there, the bed was there, the hospital was there, the air force base was there
and everyone who inhabited it
and the efforts of everyone who had ever inhabited it
the ones who built the room, the ones who built the bed, the ones who built the hospital
the town of wichita falls was there, and everyone was there to witness it
the whole state of texas was there
daniel boone was there, samuel houston was there, saint anthony was there
the entirety of the world, every being, and every being that had ever existed, that had ever created
that had ever breathed was there
they were watching you intently and they saw that you had created in your crib
and they exalted
and they haven’t stopped watching you yet
and they haven’t stopped exalting you yet

At what moments does my reach extend beyond my grasp
you are caught off guard
you take a couple drags of your cigarette
it calms you and gives you energy
it makes your stomach turn
you’ve never really considered this question
you don’t really like to think about the things beyond your grasp
you know that the world is always changing
you know that it is outside your control
you know that this change affects people
perhaps you have reached beyond your grasp when you have tried to force the change upon people
yet you are the force of change in the world
you all are
what lies beyond your grasp
all that is nonexistent is beyond your grasp, all that is idealized, all that is simply not real
those conceptualizations and those ignorances of reality
they are beyond your grasp, and it is when you grasp for them that you fall short
you stop thinking about it
the question frightens you a little bit

what is my idea of mastery
your idea of mastery is when you fail time and again
and yet you still find ways to succeed in your failure
your idea of mastery is being able to write a paper at 2:21am a month late and call it a performance piece
and your mastery lies in that it is still art
when faced with impending success or the threat of failure, how do I respond
first you breath
second your heart beats
third your synapses fire
fourth you smoke something
(you kind of like destroying yourself, you know it’s going to happen anyway
you like the thrill of the moment, when you can practically feel the cancer cells growing uncontrollably
and the future drawing near)
fifth you go into the future like a blind, trackless train
barreling into whatever you may encounter and relishing in the experience
sixth you breath

which artists do I admire most
artists are people that change the world
artists are people that unsilence the world
you are an artist
you unsilence your family, you unsilence your friends, you unsilence strangers
you unsilence the world
you admire the artists that see this
you admire the artists that write about others
you admire the artists that write about themselves
you admire the artists that started it all, those ancient greeks
those ancient greeks that started it all
you love geometry, you love euclid, you love the beauty of it all
you love that euclid unsilenced the form of the universe
you admire those medieval men
those men who unsilenced god
you love religion, you love aquinas, you love the beauty of it all
you love that aquinas has unsilenced god to man
you love that aquinas has put god in man’s box
you admire those renaissance men
those geniuses that unsilenced each other
you love art, you love da vinci, you love the beauty of it all
you love that da vinci has exposed man to man
you love that da vinci has freed man from the burden of god
you love that da vinci has crippled man with knowledge of self
you admire those enlightened men
those men that unsilenced the mind
you love reason, you love voltaire, you love the beauty of it all
you love that voltaire has laid the proper method of the mind bare
you love that voltaire has equipped man with the tools to examine all
you admire those romantic men
those men that unsilenced the passion of nature
you love passion, you love thoreau, you love the beauty of it all
you love that thoreau took you to the woods
you love that thoreau showed you the beauty of simply being
you love that thoreau showed you the beauty of the world
you admire those goddamn communist men
those men that unsilenced mankind from one another
you love the struggle, you love marx, you love the beauty of it all
you love that marx loved man
you love that marx was just
you love that marx was a genius
you love that marx discovered the way for perfect human interaction
you love that marx rationalized the senseless abandonment of self to give to another
you admire those beat men
those men that unsilenced themselves and broke it all and started fresh and wrote on neverending scrolls
you love the edge, you love ginsburg, you love the beauty of it all
you love that ginsburg loved men
you love that ginsburg experimented with drugs
you love that ginsburg wrote poetry
you love that ginsburg was new
you love that ginsburg broke all the rules and showed the arbitrarity and the futility of it all
you love that ginsburg made noise and put it into language and made meaning and made art out of aillusion
you admire those pop artists
those artists that unsilence the here, the now
you love the sound, you love lorde, you love the beauty of it all
you love that lorde is here and now
you love those sounds that lorde makes, those primitive grunts into the universe of a people desperate for attention, the need to be seen and heard now
you love that you are aware of your time and place
you love to explore your time and place
you love that you love your time and place
you admire yourself

does anyone in my life regularly inspire me
you don’t know what it really means to be inspired
you don’t know what it feels like to be breathed into with the divine breath of the muses
you don’t think it exists
the concept of inspiration only goes as far as that force that makes you want to continue to live
that force that makes you want to create
you look around at the people you’re with
what’s inspiring about them?
people are ignorant
people are rash
people are mean
people are temporary
what’s inspiring about that?
people are new
people change
people exist
people are smart
people create
people are selfless
people are beautiful
the whole world is f***ing beautiful, every atom, every person, every tree and every rock
every crime and every love, every tear and every grunt of joy, every hungry belly and every penny
you exist
you are f***ing beautiful
you are inspired

define muse
you don’t know what a muse really is, you’ve never really met one
flying in with their harps and their words of inspiration
you’ve never really cared to find a muse
you see a thousand people every day, a thousand faces that each have a story
why construct an idealized perfect muse to breath upon you
when each of you is an idealized perfect muse that breathes upon the universe
muses don’t exist, but people do
muses have never existed, but inspiration always has

what is my greatest fear
your greatest fear is being unable to share the joy of your existence with the rest of the world.

what is my ideal creative activity
you are awake at 2 am on a monday morning
you are writing
you are losing track of all the yous you are writing
you are trying to figure out how you’re going to put this all on the scroll
you are experimenting
you are creating
you are a work of art
you need to create to be perfect
you simply have to be in order to create
you talk to someone else
you conversate
you breathe at another person, you bark at them, and they understand you
you create with them in a conversation
you inspire them to rip off their muzzle and bark
you have created something and someone new and it is ideal

what is your greatest dream
your alarm clock goes off
you scream internally
you wake up
you scream internally
you breathe
you are conscious
you are alive
you are dreaming
and you exist.