'is sad'

There are people that cry like they're bawling out their guts, all faces and noise, shapes of ugliness. And there are people who cry with such beautiful melancholy, a stillness, a truth. True despair is disturbingly quiet. It's a minor chord, a moment. A frozen stab, melting all over you. Submission. I noticed myself and did the second, partly acting, partly just being, so I'm sure it wasn't at all fake.

I called the admissions lady, for the story it's a lady, she was really a girl. Get your application in, she said, even though it's late, yes, they really just want top quality people on the course. The problem is though, I don't have evidence of my greatness, I waffled, I haven't made work for five years, I think I'm good enough to be there, if I agree with my self that I can be as good as I want to be. Oh, you're still there, and I'm lost.

Why am I having this conversation, I thought, why did I just ring you, to discount the option, when really it opened up the option and showed I was already discounted by default. I never knew ceasing would be a nail. I didn't choose to stop. I didn't want to give art workshops to scouse kids, didn't want to be part of a studio group which so wasn't what art was to me that I chose to delete the whole thing, shelve it for a better place.

The better place is now, but, didn't anyone tell you, conventions apply here, you have to earn it, wait, accumulate, grow exponentially. Didn't you think about that? You must be a faker all along, it's not crochet, you can't just pick it up whenever you feel like it. There's plenty of other try-hards and if you're trying less harder, well then you may as well just fuck off and ignore this whole want.

I knew I was write. That was a mistake, for real, but I severely like it. I am in my pyjamas at three o'clock. I am alone in a bedroom in a warehouse, where if I wanted to get back on the wagon I'd be at my desk like some sort of artbot, getting the fuck on with it in my amazing art-bubble-vacuum-of-one. I got so far, fell off the edge, didn't jump the gap to the next level, and now I'm truly doubting whether I can get back to it. Surely no-one else would be bothering.

I can sit there 'making a painting', 'making a story', but these actions seem just like an allegory of what they're supposed to be. I think I may have just understood allegory for the first time there, if that's what I mean, not sure. It's an image like an applique, an appliqued bit over an original template. The added action is a metaphor for something underneath, which is weak and unoriginal, the action is stronger and meaningful, but at the same time, an excess. It knows too much.