fletcherhasathought

[fletcherhasathought]

This post is dedicated to my homeland.

Not to the people who live in it, not to the country, not to the cities or history. This is dedicated to the land itself, the ground, the mud and the sand. To the trees and the desert and the rivers and the lakes and the migrating birds and the loud sea and the striped clouds and the overbearing sun. This is dedicated to a land people are fighting over for the wrong reasons.

This is dedicated to a land.

A home I'm watching burn bright but somehow become darker than it ever was.

[fletcherhasathought]

The truth is, I know what I want to do with my life.

I want to create.

I even know what I want to create. I want to edit my book and publish it. I want to draw more of my webcomic. I want to consistently post mini strips. I want to write a middle grade fantasy trilogy. I want to resume work as a coloring assistant.

I want to create.

Purely. Unbothered. Free.

But I know they're not realistic, my wants.

No, not unrealistic. They are unsustainable. To me. I can't live with my dad forever, I can't work minimum wage any more.

I need to figure out what I wanna do with my life.

Sorry,

what I need to do with my life.

Because there's no force on earth that can stop me from creating. I will edit the book and continue the webcomic and post the strips and color the panels and write the trilogy and the world can burn and I can starve on the sidewalk and the sky can rain blood and I will still dip my boney finger in a puddle and draw stories on a scorched brick.

It should be enough.

It has been so far.

So

I can create from the side.

I can make half my life what I want it to be. And half what I need it to be. And maybe if I'm lucky the Create side will take over the Need side like a dominant eye taking over an injured twin's function.

And if I'm even luckier the Need side will take over the Create side like a fungus growing over an ant

so that I won't get upset whenever I'm not creating

so I'm not pained whenever I think about all the creations I will never get to share.

Because I'm so busy living the life necessary to sustain a life

instead of living the life necessary to be alive.

So, yes, truth be told, I know what I want to do with my life.

And

it would've hurt less if I didn't.

[fletcherhasathought]

Feed the crows.

In a fistful of soil and nuts and bolts, I feed the crows.

In the sweltering sun and the crying skies, I open their beaks and pour down the piles.

Berries covered in moss, bullets frosted in cold, all go down the hatchet hole.

In return I get blood, a new eye, a femur and a foot. I get trinkets of flesh and jewelery of bones. I get more reasons to feed the crows.

I give them ten roses and receive a pair of lungs. When I hand them an autumn leaf they open their mouths and spit out a tongue.

They wait for their meals with clicking throats and cooing wings, they pinch and nibble my sides when I take too long to kneel.

When I gave them a lolipop they sucked on my finger. Gave up my bellybutton so they wouldn't take my liver.

Feed my crows.

So I don't have to sever another toe when I can't find a daisy, feed them so I don't have to take out my second kidney.

Can't give back their gifted feet or eyes, it's got to be fresh, it's got to be mine. Another eyelash, another tooth. Another freckle, another piece of my youth.

More and more of me is torn into kibbles, parts of a human becoming meat of a bird.

I am the offerings my crows give to others, and in return they hand me their gifted autumn leaves and bullets and criers.

Feed my crows so they can exchange my brain, feed my crows until I am one of them - a collector of bullets and daisies and wings, a carnivorous vessel filled with another's limbs.

Feed your crows.

[fletcherhasathought]

Me after finally doing my laundry