s-t-r-e-s-s

is spelled out in my afternoon dreams today. 
terrifying.
things i didn't know i was capable of thinking.
like anger more intense than ever felt accompanied by circumstances vile, absurd, dire and trivial altogether.


i guess i have chosen my line of work. and it is work, capital W.
work and not art. and not the stuff of higher learning, adventure, and a few other unknowable loves. i chose it freely and do not regret it. and i am mourning the losses deeply.
watching them escape. pieces of me escaping me. rejecting me for somewhere nurturing. fair enough. these dreams are tearing me up...    anyway.


former options morph into impossibilities. one for each of my 26 years.
now i just want a bit of sleep. some time with a book, before passing out completely,
and a little energy to write one goddamned letter.
still...it feels like my cells are all splitting in stupid ways. tearing from the inside, when i can't decide what to do with a free hour. a random gap in time; a hole to fall into.
each is a tiny hell housing a devil for each desire.
each a purgatory of ungraspable longing.


yes, stress. you are indeed the predator of our species.
scooping up the wounded of the pack to give em a slow one.
installing the fear, an everlasting download of time that appears to turn on a wheel
that we can stare at
waiting for something to change.

Creative crutch that it is, I just love it.
But more like a couch than a crutch. I can nestle up and draw a mostly willing model who pretends not to know the difference between my leg and a conveniently located chin-scratcher. Especially the cats that stick around awhile, giving you all sorts of chances. The lines are all curvy and smooth. Plenty of attitude and every darn bit of it, totally justified. No apologies here. I really do love drawing cats. 
Even though they make up what i lack in budding characters, story-lines and letters i planned on fleshing out. what else can i do when it just doesn't come? and a cat walks by?
so i draw more cats every time i draw. walking projections of my creative constipation of all these formerly exciting ideas i had. They vanish faster than fresh salsa in my brain's tiny-sized bowl, then projected onto cats.
fair is fair.