It’s getting harder to balance. Working. Raising family. Racing around town. Playing. And with all the media shrapnel flying about that you can’t ignore because it’s too important and you can’t ignore because there’s too much at stake. Drums of war that never cease. And then there’s the writing. Always looming in the corner of my mind. Threatening me with a dry well. A creative hell that will pull me to my grave. It’s getting harder to balance. *** Jim Mitchem
Sometimes? When I kill a fly? I imagine it’s a former enemy who came back to spy.
Sometimes, when I see someone young and beautiful, I think that underneath that makeup, and those clothes, and that hair, and skin, and cartilage and muscle, there’s a skull. And all skulls look mostly the same regardless of ethnicity, gender, beauty, or age.
Do you know how hard it is to keep creating when so few seem to notice? Not that hard, actually. Not when you have almost no control over it. You can’t be concerned with how what you create affects others. Or whether anyone even notices. You just reach into the knife drawer and cut open a new vein. And let it bleed until it scabs. The trick, I think, is to ignore the scars. *** jmitchem
The boy appears at the end of the driveway. She laughs and races toward him, then past him along the street. Another laugh. Her hair flowing behind her. Shining under the streetlamp. He hurries to catch her. And they disappear. *** Jim Mitchem
*** Call me crazy but I don’t trust parking decks Claustrophobic and heavy and with one sneeze of the earth it turns into a pile of rubble. And everyone will be crying bloodied and bruised and covered in ash Except for gangsters Gangsters don’t cry. *** jmitchem
