Inspiration nothing.

Eight months later I find myself wondering if everything will ever be all the way better. If I can go a day without thinking of some problem or some rotten, sickly-sweet memory. Although it is moth-eaten and faded, my only shirt that has a twin's motto still stands true: "My life is going uphill like a fat kid on a bicycle." Everything in the last eight months has been uphill. My friendships. My dealings with my family. My schoolwork. My new relationship, blossoming like a nearly-frozen rose someone planted in Anarctica for the penguins to stare at. My arising financial problems. All the drinking and smoking could never, will never smother exactly what's going on in my head.

Somewhere on the way I had a conversation with what I conceived to be the true incarnation of Evil. Out of my mind, we talked about my problems, my interpersonal feelings. Oddly enough, it was the dark side of me that said that it was up to me how my future turns out. It was strangely supportive. "You know in your heart what you must do," it said before silence and darkness enveloped me in a cradle of emptiness. I had never sighed so hard in my life; it was as though the realization had taken part of my being with it--something like a tax on knowledge.

Art? Yeah, I've thought about it, but not much. More and more I am left to marvel at the discoveries of those before me, only to slowly figure out where their work ended and where mine can begin. You never feel more insignificant and God-like at the same time when you watch tiny creatures darting around for their lives on a slide magnified 400 times. It gives you the unnerving feeling that perhaps someone is watching you, too.

Honestly, I have forgotten what it is to be truly and simply human, just a girl and nothing more. Although it may sound exceedingly conceited, I don't go a day without thinking of some perspective, some issue that I'm almost certain that no one in my periphery has thought about. Back to square one, feeling alone again--mostly because of my own alienation. Sometimes I feel like the scientific world would get more done if we bypassed what everyone conceives as ethics, morals--when did we get to the point that our society feels that its opinions matter so much? If it brings truth and solutions, who gives a shit? Almost nothing in the world could be more certain than true science.

But now, I am free of my tin box of a prison cell. I left that place full of feathers and ashes and memories and I can have the satisfaction of never going back. I will never see those images again and if I do I can get rid of them easily, clouding them in much more important thoughts. This town is draining all of the soul out of me and I need to move on. There are days I wish I could just pack my bags and bird and hit the road, becoming a stripper or a storm chaser or the best bartender in town. Something simple. But no, I can't do that--I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't do something that didn't matter.

Maybe that's why I've neglected my art so much--I am turning into my father and think it matters less and less. If I can't get paid for it, then what's the point? And yet, I play my music and still see the same things I used to. I see images and dreams and figures, burned into my head and only activated when that song plays again. I see a desert, and a monster, and a woman riding it... and animatics, things I only wish and dreamed to create with skills and resources I don't have. I may have been happier as an artist, as just a girl that writes screenplays or directs movies, that paints or draws cartoons and comics, that dances beautifully and makes every man that sees her want her.

But I know in my heart what I must do.