Here To Listen

Libraries are fantastic places. Both writers, readers and overworked University students are aware of this. But London libraries are even better; for they don’t just harbour stories in the books, they also harbour them in the people. Over the past couple of days I’ve assisted Toni Stuart with her poetry installation ‘’Here To Listen’’. Toni works in complete silence, while inviting members of the public to speak to her. After the exchange, she writes a poem. It’s beautiful, mostly driven by Toni’s disposition and ability to look, see and validate a person without even having to say a word to them. It’s made me reflect a lot about permission and what that means, what happens when we let people tell their stories without any response or judgement…..


People are wonderful, pattern making creatures. All hummed, all paused, all questioned - Can I really speak to you right now? Without you speaking back? All took a moment, then eventually shared on such an authentic level. Stories about lost watches, growing up in Pakistan, dreaming about being a squirrel, awkward train journeys - lost love. It's an exercise that transcends poetry, and feels like a method of breaking the misery which pervades London (sometimes).

I wander what would happen if half the capital fell silent while the other spoke, how therapeutic that could feel. I wander what could be said if the right space was allowed.

What really struck me about this experience is how I slowly found power in listening to the noises around me, the hypnotic rise and fall of Leicester Square outside, the polite conversations at tables nearby, and the countless newspapers shuffling. How comforting these noises were, although almost distracting. In the process I am essentially there to act as the facilitator and communicate for Toni, so retreating into my own version of silence is probably not (overall) useful to the process. I'm grateful for Toni for allowing me this experience, in awe of how consistently strong each poem is, and urge you to check out her work. Her stories breathe life.



Here is a poem I wrote while in the space.

Journey to Wellness

I like to think I had a grasp on my body pretty well; I thought I knew how it reacts, what it needed, and that I could look after it flawlessly - I didn't understand why it would become sluggish and tired join the day, why my immune system was failing me often, and all round I was feeling less like a human and more like a flower left to wilt on the side of someone's desk.

The truth is, I don't look after my body.

I treat it very harshly - I don't get enough sleep, I fill it with food it doesn't physically need or really want, I often abuse it out of self hatred for my self.

As an overweight person and someone with a mental health disorder, my existence is slightly taboo:  According to the media, (and most people I know), I should be doing everything in my power to change  these things about my self. There's an evilness to these notions of 'fatness', 'sickness.' nut this attitude doesn't change people, it makes them worse. When folks internalize shame about who they are, they see their mind and body as something that will trap them - it will never be what it should be, it should shrink, disappear, be 'normal' (whatever that is or looks like). It leads to a cycle where you become so besotted with the idea of inadequacy, the ability to be visible becomes impossible.

And what  I'm telling you now is: you deserve to be visible. You deserve to exist, take up space, to see your body and mind as wonderful - whoever you are. Take your self on a journey to Wellness, to viewing your world as something that can benefit you rather than destroy you.

For me, this translates to a consistent vegan diet. I'm not a professional nutritionist, and I don't think this diet is accessible to everyone, but I have lots of reasons why I do it: stamping out animal cruelty, health benefits, it's fun and creative -  and most importantly, I take care of my self a lot more. Just giving a google to all the health benefits to different fruit and vegetables I eat is an empowering  experience, it allows you to understand your body functions a lot more, how you can let it fly in the best possible way.

Some Days Are Worse Then Others

It's currently two am and I am sitting in my university room, less then a week until I move out. As I start to take down my posters and clean out my belongings, I'm noticing the little scratches on the walls and eyeliner splashes across my mirror and sink basin. I find it funny, and also oddly beautiful, how a room can reflect the body; with all it's lumps and scars and stories written all over it. Then I think of my security deposit and it's certainly less beautiful..and how I'm supposed to make it look like I never lived here after all.

The pretentious kid inside of me want to leave a note between the crooks of my mattress, V for Vendetta style, but I doubt the next oblivious kid to inhabit the room will either A) be able to find it, B) care even if they did and C), it's not like I have anything profound to say anyway.

Looking at my 14/15 year old self, I think we have a lot of differences and similarities.  I'm still overly sentimental, I still find change difficult, but I also am much more adventurous, and much more equipped to deal with my fears.  Some days are worse then others,  some things suck more then others, some things are ridiculously scary - this is the case for the rest of your life. Over time you're going to find new ways deal with things, you're going to find self agency, and self believe. You're not always going to be that scared teenager who feels ridiculously lost in the world. 

London (Where The Clouds Never Go Away)

You know the friend who you see in your phone contacts, or on your Facebook list of friends, and you think: ''Man, I really need to catch up with them at some point.''

Well.

This blog is certainly that friend.

I have been meaning to write a blog post for a while but my university work and general life madness has stopped me. Also, I guess it's hard to digest everything that has been happening over the past months...Let alone write a post about it.

Time is weird - it seems to raise and fall when you least expect it. When you don't want to be in a place, time seems to be endless, and when you are happy - or at least productive and busy - time slips away endlessly.

Moving to University has seem to move so quick, already I am about to begin my second term. 

One of the best things about moving to Univeristy and out of your house is that you really get to know yourself, you learn how to maintain your well being on your own account, and you get to know your passions, flaws,  and tendencies so much better then when you were younger.

Something I am more steadily aware of is my need to document things. Living in London, there is a constant wave of chaos around you - and I am constantly thinking of how I can remember my life here, whether it be writing it down, taking a less then impressive photo on my little nokia phone which resembles a brick, or just letting my senses explore the present - Being in the capital city is so incredibly strange but wonderful.

Between The Pages Of A Book

I got tagged on Tumblr to talk about books that have touched me, and I thought I'd post here aswell.

1. A Quiet Belief In Angels - R.J Ellory. This book is actually a crime/mystery novel, but reads more like a classic. The prose in this book is absolutely incredible, and the way the author handles themes like mortality, death, and the ways in which your childhood can shape your identity is just fantastic. 
2. The Book Thief - Markus Zusak. This book speaks for its self. If you haven’t read it already, I  really suggest you do - a book has never, ever touched me as much as this one. Based in Nazi Germany it follows the tale of a girl named Liesel and is narrated by Death himself.
3. Freak The Mighty - Rodman Philbrick. I never realized when I was younger that this book was actually really popular before I started speaking about it  to people now, but this book had a really profound effect on me as a child.
4. Life After God - Douglas Coupland. The concept behind this book is very, very cool and Coupland has a very distinct writing style which just stays with you. It’s a series of short stories which details a society that is post-religion. 
5. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou. This is a book I really want to read again so I understand the true weight of it; because it’s  such an important read. Maya Angelou is one of the best writers in history and her autobiography brings to light  critical thinking  around race and identity, but in such an eloquent and hopeful way. 
6. The Knife Of Never Letting Go - Patrick Ness. I actually only read this last year but my god, this is so beautiful and emotional. I can’t wait to read the rest of his series.
7. The Yellow World - Albert Espinosa.  This book is really personal - but also very, very thoughtful and reflective. It’s super interesting in the way he structures it, too.
8. The Perks Of Being A Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky. Shock of the century right? No but seriously, this is like the first YA book i feel I was properly exposed to and it will always stay with me. I read it  at a time when I was fourteen and very alone and the concept of  being the ‘wallflower’ kept me going. 
9. The Looking Glass Wars - Frank Beddor. This was my favourite book growing up and remains very, very dear to me. Probably  is actually lame if I ever re-read it.
10. I Am An Emotional Creature - Eve Ensler. Eve is such a fantastic writer who understands the female identity, really, really well. 

HONORARY MENTIONS: Margeret Atwood  always touches the soul because she is the best, best best author ever and I love her to pieces and Kazuo Ishiguro for Never Let Me Go.

The Lines Within Story-telling

So J.K Rowling has discussed how she wished Harry and Hermoine had become a couple at the end of the Harry Potter series, and while this has ignited a debate abut whether people agree with that, it's also definitely making people think about the author/reader relationship.

And while everyone is on the topic of the readers having ownership over the narrative: (even though the idea of Hermoine and Harry makes me grumpy) I do fully believe that readers can contest ideas which are ‘cannon’ by authors; that they can criticize, re-imagine, interpret, and believe whatever they want.

 But I don’t believe that the authorial intent can be expanded on once the story is over. I love J.K and she has full right to reflect on her writing decisions, (as all authors do at the end of the day), but I don’t like the idea that once an author makes a claim after the book has been published, that every reader has to agree and believe that - because that claim is suddenly part of the narrative. It isn’t. Just like Dumbledore’s ‘supposed’ representation of homosexuality, it fails to be supported because it just felt like something J.K added in to make her seem ‘headline’ news worthy. Obviously a character representing the lgbt*q community’s plot should never just solely rely around that fact, (a character should not solely be written for queer representation, it should be fully fleshed out and complex like every other character) there is just no real evidence in the text to support it all.

And I think that's what's disappointing. If things aren't valid enough, they become really hard to believe.

I don't really think there is a clear cut answer to this debate, I think it's always a personal stance: But I do think my opinion is that if J.K wanted to write Harry and Hermoine, she probably should have,

Loose Ends

I am not a self proclaimed perfectionist, but I do not like having Loose Ends in my life.

Something I have grown steadily more aware of  recently is my ''obsessive'' tendencies when it comes to trying to get things done. I've noticed that once I fret over a thing so incredibly much, the thing literally becomes kind of impossible to do. Like, I always find myself setting targets throughout the day, and if I do not achieve those targets, I really don't feel accomplished - and this will still happen even if the day I just had was super productive. That just won't matter. If I had to ''print out a sheet'' and I didn't print out the sheet, my mind will go fricking ape shit . If I decided to climb a mountain that day and achieved it, my brain will still think ''You did not print out that sheet and you promised yourself you would! YOU'RE A LIAR!''

Let me explain what a Loose End is: It's the feeling of when you are wrapped up in a warm bed and you need to pee, and you know you should have gone before you wrapped up warm, but now you are just laid there ignoring it and your bladder is literally about to explode (Great metaphor there Lucy, you can totally tell you are a Nanowrimo participant). You think you are safe and you can relax - but something else looming over you in your brain's to do list jumps out at you, and you  just won't feel okay again until you tie up that Loose End.

So what's the huge moral behind this weird anxiety which makes you a perfectionist that doesn't really strive  for perfection? To be honest, I don't think there is one. If the human brain was a person, I would not like it to sit next to me on public transport.

Nanowrimo 2013

Nanowrimo 2013 is over, and I am happy to say that I was a part of it. Everyone involved with making this project so special should be given an award promptly.

I know this is going to sound ridiculously cheesy, but I am so incredibly thankful for everyone I get to connect with join nanowrimo. It’s so incredibly inspiring to see other writers seemingly do the impossible and also support you join the process. I have never met my writing buddies, but every year seeing their progress spurs me on, and I am so incredibly proud when I  get to see their bars turn into purple winners ones. This community is awesome, and it’s something I really miss throughout the year. 

This has been a hard month for me in lots of different ways - and in a shock turn of events - writing has actually allowed me to keep my sanity through it. (I know, right? Who would have thought?)

To the people who wrote 600 words to the people who wrote 60 thousand, be proud of yourself. This month you gave yourself the goal of creating something new, and regardless of how small or how big that thing is, you still did it. It doesn't matter what your end word count is, it matters that you allowed your imagination to really take a hold of it’s self. You’re all goddamn superheroes <3

 I’m definitely suffering the post wrimo- blues and I will miss the countless word sprints on twitter, the incredibly inspiring pep talks being delivered straight to your email, and the general buzz that you aren't doing it alone. 

it’s like, ”wow! you can finally watch new TV shows! you can make plans to see your friends! you can catch up on your work! YOU CAN HAVE YOUR LIFE BACK!” and you just instantly miss your unwashed greasy self slumped over your laptop with a cup of coffee.  It’s insanity but I love it.

This year I end my novel Shake The Stars From Your Skin at 56, 289 words.

To  the next year.

Old Habits Die Hard

The human race have got it wrong because they are always telling themselves phrases like, ''it will get better'' instead of ''this is a process where it will get better, then worse, then better and you will somehow have to find a way with dealing with that.''

I was thinking a lot the other day about the J.D sallinger quote, 'I have scars on my hands from touching certain people' and it reminded me how easy it is to not imagine human beings complexly: with their sets of emotions and histories. You don't see it on a person, and most people damn well don't show it - but those 'emotional scars' if you will, are definitely there.

Human beings are extremely messy and I find it strange how it's just too easy to forget that, to forget that other people are feeling things all the time. It's easy to forget that souls grow tired easily, and the scars that they carry from touching other people,  just don't fade sometimes.

Picking yourself up from gutters is an extremely hard thing to do and it's a miracle that we even posses the ability to do so, and most of the time, the picking yourself up is entirely on your own accord. We somehow carry ourselves through the sadness, through the bad history and bad patches, and we carry on. But nobody else really knows that, there is no gold star or huge parade, you just do it, I guess.

And I think it's kind of okay that we don't have that gold star or huge parade or even just people noticing that we're picking ourselves up. I think it has to come from you, and you alone - because you know that badness will return, nobody's life is devoid of that, but you will  also know that when it does come, you're going to be your own hero.


Don't forget that being a messy human being is sometimes the only thing you can be. Something which I wrote for nanowrimo  which made me think that, ''Here was a man that was plagued by being the one thing he is supposed to be: a human. ''


I have seen the darkness of the day in the form of a UCAS application and Nanowrimo all in one month but I am still *alive, gang. Keep being messy.

*Half alive.

Alright Stop, Collaborate & Listen

Guess who's back with a brand new invention?

(I am).

I've recently become apart of a student lead pop culture blog which can be found here. It has the most abstract name in the history of pop culture blogs.

I've also been heavily inspired by Eve Ensler's books to experiment with a more collaborative style and dip into different forms of narratives -  vignettes, prose, poetry etc, and created a tumblr which explores the theme of love. It can be found here.

Victories Come In Different Sizes

People call me the PG Heisenberg. I am the one who politely rings the doorbell. *BREAKING BAD THEME FADES INTO BACKGROUND*

I have now officially utilized that Breaking Bad joke on every internet related thing I have. Feel proud of me, folks. It's a small victory.

Victories come in different sizes.

And for me, it's the tiny ones which are the most valuable. The moments in the day which are fleeting and unimportant to everyone else, but make you really happy. For instance; making yourself a damn good cup of coffee. No one gets to taste it, but darn, you know you did good. Or thinking you are running late to something when infact, you are right on time. Small Victories are the stitches between the patchwork of a person, the little pockets of positivity that remind you that the world is not so bad of a place after all. Regardless of how bad things get, Small Victories are a constant. There will always be good cups of coffee and crunchy leaves to stand on. Remember that.

Small victories of today:

A) I just swallowed a Tablet which makes me an Adult with a capital A. Someone congratulate me by bringing me a soft kitten to stroke.

B) I witnessed the school photocopier which can STAPLE  things. Modern day society, everyone.

C) I ate noodles for lunch.

D) I almost hit the end note in Stars from Les Mis (except not really).

”What does not kill you, will only make you stronger, braver, a better person.”

But sometimes I think the art of being brave is to not recollect from the past, not to yearn for the past to change your future, it is about wandering into the present with a blank canvas.

However, having said that, I wish I had recorded the thoughts and words I didn’t say but wanted to. Played them back to myself, made them my phone’s ringtone, familiarized myself with them not only until they were comfortable in my mind but until they were comfortable in my mouth so if the time ever arises for when they were needed, they roll off like a wave in the ocean.

I am just a series of mummers from the mouth. The maybes and the I'll do it laters. The they-did-not-mean-it.The half human who feels anxious about asking the bus driver for a ticket.

My brain rolls over the memory of a boy in my art class calling me fat. If I remember correctly, he actually called me a whale.

 I replay this situation a thousand times but instead of sulking, I engulf the boy like he is Pinocchio. Or maybe I jump on the desk - like in Dead Poet’s Society - and spew out a inspirational monologue which informs my fellow class mates that worth is not assigned to the size of your pants. Your mouth doesn’t just taste food, it tastes languages and love. So speak already.

Your body is a harvester for love and laughter and smiles; a microcosm of wisdom and intelligence and compassion. Also, Whales are kind of badass, so don’t worry if you look like one.

Or maybe, maybe I am super intimidating and I dropkick the boy, right in the groin. Then I scream, ”THERE ARE GOVERNMENT SECRETS HIDDEN BETWEEN THE ROLLS IN MY STOMACH, A CLAP OF MY THIGHS CONJURES ENOUGH THUNDER TO TAKE OUT THE WHOLE OF LONDON, YOU DO NOT WANT TO MESS WITH ME BITCH.”

It is easier to be brave with your eye’s closed. It is easier to imagine yourself saying things.

Freaks and (fictional) Greeks

The title is a play on the TV Show Freaks and Geeks. I don't think Greek people (fictional are not) are freaks, fyi.

But they are mad tripping, yo'.

I'm currently studying the tale of Electra and the House of Atreus in Drama.

 On the power point my teacher was using, there was a subtitle that said 'at least the simpsons didn't eat Maggie'.

Yeah, not the most conventional of Houses.

Essentially, there is are lots of incidents which involve: the eating of children, curses and scandalous romances. If they were around today there most definitely would be a channel four documentary about them.

The F word

Heads up: This is slightly rambly and personal but something which I've wanted to write about.

(TW: body image, ed, fat shaming)

People cannot say the F word.

Fat.

Which, of course, is entirely understandable. We have built a culture where the word 'fat' holds 
such a huge negative weight  around it, that if  we are to associate somebody with being fat, we are insulting them in the worst possible way.  But why is it insulting? Because nobody wants to be a Fat Person™ .

Fat Person™ is a overweight person who lives a terrible life because of their weight. They are undateable,  can't achieve any forms of success, unhealthy, dumb, not interesting, and unattractive.  This trademark has been perpetuated in educational systems, by the media, in workplace environments, by cultural perceptions - etc etc. Our foundations, our whole empire, consists of fat hating and fat phobia..We equate thin with a semantic field of positivity: attractive, healthy, successful, and have now internalized such a deep stigma around fat people and fat people's lives that we are now so unbelievably uncomfortable in associating people with it.  

It's such extreme bullshit.  A) We need to expel the myth that our body is only healthy when our body is thin.  We also need to expel the myth that our health is only connected to our appearance. Health is personal. Something which needs to be individually defined for each human being, it is not defined by a waist size. Also, unhealthy people, whether thin or fat, deserve respect and kindness too. You have no fucking idea what someone might have gone through for their health to be a certain way and it's not your concern. Your concern is to support them mentally.  B) Fat people are allowed to be sex positive and date whoever the fuck they want, just like everyone else. Regardless of what Cosmo magazine tries to tell you. C) Fat people can act and be whoever they want period. Their weight is never an indicator of their identity. 

As a chubby girl, I am constantly reminded by my peers that I am not chubby. No doubt they do this in order to not harm my self esteem,  so I  know they don't think I am a Fat Person™.  But really, it is ten times more harmful.  It is hard to accept your  body when people are constantly in denial of it even existing. ''You're not fat'', ''You're not big at all!'', ''Your weight doesn't even matter''. I can't even begin to count how many times this all has been said to me. I know my weight; I feel my stomach rolls when I sit down, my huge thunder thighs when I walk, my body has been with me all my life. I know it.  But  when people are constantly trying to comfort me by making me not accept it, it makes me feel confused and panicked. 

It upsets me to think people don't think I'm conscious of my weight. It upsets me that people don't think I want to be conscious of my weight. It affects how I get dressed on the morning - I can't wear that skirt because my stomach is visible, that skirt will make my hips look wider, those will make my legs look stumpy, ETC ETC.  

But it shouldn't do. I should be able to live my life in a fat body and fucking rock that fat body. If I look fat one day, I want someone to come up to me and be like, ''your pudge is on show and it looks fucking awesome''.

 I want to reclaim being a Fat Person™.

Hair Grows Back (Even After You're Dead)

An update on the hair for hazel front: I chopped thirteen inches off!

Here is the finished look.

The Fault In Our Hair

Previously on my blog I have sung praise for the book The Fault In Our Stars.

A movie adaption for this book is in the works and the lead actress, Shailene Woodley, is cutting off a lot of her beautiful hair in order to play the role of Hazel. She is donating her hair to a charity which develops wigs for children who suffer from cancer. Read her blog post here.

My mother had extremely long, curly hair when she was younger. Growing up, my sister was blessed with bouncy, effortless curls, and I, blessed with a viscous, long, messy mane. To put it in focus, my sister is the Sansa, I am the Ayra. (If Sansa had nice short hair and Ayra, long awful hair)

My hair has been long my entire life. Growing up, it just grew and grew and grew. And I loved it. but that wasn't because I associated it with beauty, either. I couldn't care less. I didn't think I was very much a princess for having long hair, or I was pretty because of it, I felt - in a weird way - strong. Shailene picks up on this in her blog post. Growing your hair feels like an act of defiance, an act of strength. My younger self saw this messy, long, unruly hair as a trademark.  Having hair nearly down to my knees made me feel like I had a strong identity. I guess, it's just always been a way of empowering myself. Anything to make me feel more like a lioness.

Now that I am older, and exposed to the unfairness of beauty standards, I don't so much see it it as an act of strength. It's unfair and untrue that having long typically feminine hair makes you in any way more an attractive female. Hair is great, regardless of what it looks like - I've noticed that. Regardless of it's thickness, whether it's straight or curly, the length, the style, the color - it's great. Because it's an identity in it's self.  The way the person plays with their hair, the way the person's hair bounces when they walk, the way it tuck's behind someone's ears, the way it feels, what it looks like with a hat on, it's GREAT. And totally unique to that person. SO let me tell you now, whatever your hair looks like, whatever you may feel about it...I can assure you, you rock it.

Hair also changes. And grows.

Let's detract from hair for a second, and focus on something else. Recently I've been thinking about what I really want at the moment in life and I realized, at the core, I just want to grow. Grow as a human, grow as an artist, encourage growth in others.  In order to grow, I think you have to dare to try the new. Be unapologetic and brave and strong and challenging.

 I used to see my hair as strength, as my image. Now, I see the freedom of losing it and daring myself to feel strong in other ways as my TRUE image.

So,  I am deciding to join in on hairforhazel, and cutting 8 inches of my hair off.

To quote Shailene, ''there was a time when growing my hair out symbolized something for me, but the power of sharing that choice, sharing the ability to have long hair with someone feels far more powerful right now.''

There Will Be Times

there will be times where
your eyes soften, a burnt crimson 
your teeth will speak a broken prose, 
 your sentences will need rehabilitating.

there will be times where you will have to remember that words 
fall quicker from mouths 
then tears do from eyelashes.

there will be times where
where your footprints will feel like teardrops, 
when your limbs feels like phantoms, 
those split seconds where you  
are fading
like ghost dust.

there will be that 3:00am where your half asleep
brain asks ”is there anything worthwhile in this world?’’

and it will reply back to you, ”yes, because there are other times, too.”

Abandoment: The Saga

I always find myself abandoning this blogspot.

So,  I didn't finish my Blog Every Day In June experiment. I am consistently inconsistent.

 And to make up for it, now I'm going to write something whiny and self indulgent. Oh well.

I’ve realized things have changed in all waves of my life. And I know that change is just A Thing that happens. People change, seasons change, you change, life changes - and you just have to deal with it. It's the passage of time. 

And while I am getting better with this idea of change, I think I would be even more equipped if I wasn't just on the edge of everything. I’m always on the edge. Of friendship groups, social events, ideas, identity - I’ve never  really been a full person.

 Every year I come close to feeling full. Every year I come close to saying, ”hey that person is me! That is Lucy Howell. I can breathe now”’ But then something changes and I am back to square one, back to the edge.

I hate those days when thoughts just seem endless. Not endless in the way that they are endlessly spouting creative and interesting things, but endless in the fact they just don't leave your mind, and you find yourself drowning in a pool semi-coherent worrying thoughts that shouldn't even matter.

I worry that the English language simply does not have enough words to describe things. Like nostalgia for the future. What the hell is the word for that? Or the sinking feeling you get after drinking wine - not even the slightest clue. There probably isn't one, because words like drunk suffice, and nor does one really need a word  for that, but it worries me nevertheless that we have all these thoughts and feelings and we can't condense them to one word, we can't define them properly.

I worry about all the forgotten thoughts people have and all that lost potential. Those real meaningful ones you get in the shower or just before you fall asleep - What if someone had such a life changing idea that could change the way we live our lives forever, but they just simply forgot it because it wasn’t the right time of day to write it down?

I worry that I never make enough sense for other people to think ”Hey, I think that too!” And that really isn’t something you should be striking to achieve but let’s face it, nothing makes us feel better then when our own thoughts correlate with others and people appreciate us for thinking them. 

I also worry that I may be going slightly deaf, but that’s not really a pressing matter is it?

I explain to her that I have been searching for the warmth of mother’s milk in cups of whiskey for far too long and she just laughs and says ”You’re such a fucking poet.”

I almost say to her that I want to read her like a fucking novel, even though I know that is cheesy. I want to familiarize my self with all the innocuous details, know what her favorite childhood cartoon was, the story behind her middle name, the reasons why there is a scar beneath her left ankle. I want to crack open the contents of her mind and pour it into a wine glass to drink. Get drunk off of it.

 I want to tell her that before I met her, sleep was something I merely ascended to - now it is a sanctuary - an eight hour long movie where my mind replays all the things she has ever said to me over and over again and that even though her mattress has a thousand and one lumps in it it, I don’t care because I feel safe being so close to her.
 But instead my words tremble and I say, in a little whimper, ”Yeah, I can even write haiku’s.”

 She lifts her top to scratch her stomach and I see her ribs and think of how much colour she’s breathing. There is this mark next her belly button which looks like a tiny leaf, it reminds me of autumn, the beauty hidden between the burnt out orange leafs and that danger of knowing that they will die in the winter.

My mother once said falling in love feels like dying. I don’t feel like I’m dying. Do you how us humans are made of star dust? I feel like that. I feel like I am the entire galaxy.

Art is Power!

I was thinking about how I could condense my love for theatre and the arts down into one sentence, and even after thinking really hard, literally sending my mind back and forth trying to find a provocative and philosophical thing to say, all I could think was; ‘’I think my love for Drama just masks that I probably should be sectioned’’ 

We’re all a bit mad though, us Drama kids though ey? Just ask the head teacher when she walks into the Drama room in the middle of an Artaudian piece about the oppression of woman in a western society and we’re throwing paint all over the walls and reciting backwards pig latin. ‘’Very nice children, erm bit abstract though?’’ Right you are, Miss. Right you are. Of course, that is not the only reason as to why the arts appeals to me, it’s not just that it tames my hidden insanity – the arts has sort of made me, me.

 Infact, I know it’s made me, me because throughout the whole of my high schooling life, the way I have connected and identified myself in the high school community is through the role of a ‘’drama kid’’. I love the breeds of Drama kids that walk the high school corridor, how big and brash we all are, and how jazzhands is like our secret communication, and bowler hats are a sign of our community to be worn with pride. It doesn’t matter what age we are, too or whether we are in class or not – we can just as easily be friends, so long as we are working together, in Drama-like-pride. That’s one of the best things about Drama for young people, I believe. The sense of community that transcends throughout the whole school, how we’re all in this together, not just for the sake of achieving high grades, but achieving new friends, and creating things we can all be proud of. By the time I had finished the course of GSCE Drama, I didn’t even care as to what my grade was – because at the end of the day it didn’t matter, what mattered was the vast amount of knowledge and creativity I had now learned and gained through the course, and that’s something that I never will not be proud of.

 I can’t even begin to even describe the skillset I learnt in all the years I’ve done Drama, from BTEC Performing Arts, GSCE Drama, arts award, productions, my own Drama workshops - all provided me with a great sense of well being.

 Art has conditioned my mind to see the smallest of futile life experiences into infinitely fascinating ones, it showed me how nostalgia and future, beauty and tragedy can intertwine at once, just through the forms of creations. And in those tiny insignificant moments, where I feel like an angsty teen riddled with sadness, Art is there to watch and touch and see and smell, all there for my solace, it exists for the benefit of me. Science and logic has never offered me this solace, evidence and the physicality of reality never interested me, only through the arts have I felt that learning could make me into a better person. Just the mere the existence of art has changed my perception forever.

 So. if the Arts has the ability to effect perceptions, why is it not more encouraged by the national curriculum? Why don't more workplaces take a holistic approach in motivating their workers? Why isn't creativity encouraged as a coping mechanism?