The (Literally) Starving Artist

I don’t know where all these pictures or words are coming from.

I wish they’d go away.

Pictures pulsate through my thoughts; they throb like murderously bright strobe lights. Words are beaten into my head like wooden stakes.

I’m going to explode.

I don’t know where they come from. I don’t know why they’re there.

I don’t know why I feel this way.

I don’t know why I’m scared.

Sometimes they make sense. Sometimes they don’t. Sometimes the pictures and the words correspond; other times, they contradict each other.

Sometimes they rhyme, but usually they’re just frightening.

I’m saying them. I have to say them.

The pictures, they’re scary, too.

I’m drawing them because I have to. I’m breaking down the entire world, scrawling the shattered remnants of my dying sanity onto scraps of paper, blank walls, flesh, or clawing my confusion into the dirt…

There is a chair, and it is made of wood. There is a little boy standing in a long and dark tunnel, and puzzle pieces and bright lights are around him.

He arranges his nostrils to match the dirt and grime.

There are goats, too.

I don’t feel emotions.

They just show up there.

In my head, it’s just pictures and words, pictures and words.

They shimmer and move and morph into themselves. Objects are absorbed into the background, and if I don’t capture them soon, there will be nothing left.

I can’t let it happen. I can’t let anything happen.

My brain just imploded.

I can’t stop, and they pictures won’t stop, either.

Pictures and words, pictures and words.

A desk. A desk, a lamp, a man hides underneath. Someone is watching. There are eyes everywhere. Everything is squirming lines and eyes and internal organs and terror and explosions and confusions and eyes, eyes, eyes, eyes, eyes, eyes….

Don’t ask me why I said it. I already forgot.

Don’t ask me what it means. Your guess is as good as mine.

I didn’t make this up, it made itself up.

Things keep coming and I keep throwing them out into the open.

Stop showing up, they just come here.

Stop coming here. Stop taking my sleep, I don’t have time to keep up with all of the pictures and words…. Images, images, images.

Stop stealing my sleep, stop taking my eyes.

These are my eyeballs. Don’t steal them, don’t take them out.

I have to take them out myself and hide them away so the pictures will never get them.

I have to get the pictures.

They came all by themselves.

My brain exploded.

All that is left is chaos and internal organs and flashing, shimmering, throbbing lights and it’s too bright and I want to go along the sky. It’s dark, but it’s too bright.

There are worms, maggots, centipedes. WORMS. They’re under the desk. My brain is gone.

He has a black eye and a bloody nose and bruises and scrapes.

It’s cold.

Eyes. Eyes, eyes, eyes.

Squirming lines spell out our fear. The little boy is running and laughing, jumping up and down, screaming with joy, but for some reason, I can’t hear him. It’s quiet and the silence is so deafeningly quiet that it hurts my ears. Stop it.

Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it. My brain just exploded.

Now I’m in the tunnel and the little boy is made of rock. His face is coming out of the walls, frozen in a shocking expression of terror and agony. And there are eyes everywhere. Eyes, crawling, morphing, flashing, changing.

Everything is not what it seems. EXPLOSION. Everything is burning, everything is changing into other things.

It’s chaotic. All these pictures show up all by themselves.

Go away… please, go away.

These are my eyes. I don’t want them in the tunnel. I have to keep my legs attached to my body, because I have to run or the worms will get me.

They’ll get my eyes. They’re crying acid. Worms.

I’ll take them out and hide them away in the sewers; I’ll crawl under the desk and assemble the puzzles until the pictures stop and my brain comes back.

I’ve lost my mind.

My brain imploded. My head exploded.

I’m insane.

Come back.

Come back, don’t leave me. Please don’t go. Oh God, please don’t leave me.

The worms won’t stop, and my eyes are being lost to the acid.

The desk can only hide me for so long. Don’t abandon me. I miss you and the tunnel is so long and dark.

It’s too bright to see, but the eyes see me.

I’m not the only one who feels lights in their eyes.