My imaginary best friend made me cry again tonight
My tears leave stains on my cheekbones
My insides feel weak, and sad
He has an imaginary girlfriend,
Let me feel the pain I caused,  
I promise you,  I remember
New days call for new beginnings
Whatever it takes to find some place to call home

Its back to school again,
Back with these artsy people again.

Time to start learning again,
Time to create again.

Think again,
Conform again.

Last Year.

To be unable to sleep without a drink in my system
To be unable to feel love, but seek it
To not know what beholds for me
But crave something

I feel so incredibly alone,
Summer is over and my birthday is tomorrow
I feel so low, all time low
I need something to believe in,
A war to fight for
To serve a purpose other than plating overpriced proteins

I feel stuck, unable to get myself out of this rut

It is 6 in the morning and I haven't slept yet
Im not tired
Falling skies and exposed bricks

Life has proven to be hard for me
I feel it all, everything I've done wrong
But I just cant let love feel

I am so incredibly alone

Crooked traffic lines
Cracked ribs, and broken hearts
Another Bob Dylan song makes me cope
My mind is timeless, and my heart aches
But there is no cure for desperation
And mumbling words for praise ain’t gonna cut it
And ill end up being lonesome and ill be alone
With another 60’s melody and another overused verse
From a classic song,
And my iPod will deafen my ears to sleep

As famous souls die by the hand of celebrity
And talent falls to another pill, another tabloid
Another insecurity violated

Won’t you come over and stop making a fool out of me,

Left is time,
And another talent,
Remembered by death,
And never will those, know
That they were infamous

I struggle through school
I struggle through my emotions
Everyday is a challenge
I put up a jubilant front
But sometimes I get low
Grow into a ball of limbs and torso
Wrapping myself away,
Creating a shell of ifs and whens
Hot flashes and sweated dreams
Constantly spinning out of control and back again
Living for the remember, times past seem like moments better then they should
And I sit on my mattress and sheets
Circling in and out of depression

I wish I could write like Paul Simon,
“Time hurries on” As the days go from day to night
And the words had my head dissipates with the morning light
“Be careful, his bowtie is really a camera”
Constantly viewing things in different ways,
Books and books of my scribbled mumbles,
Only writing when I am constant, transient,
Wishing, for a cigarette, I know, Ill have to wait
Trying to bring the darkness onto paper
Trying to narrate some internal monologue between my selves
To spew out those tarnished replicas
To unleash the butterflies
While drowning the wings, with a technical solution
...The dangling conversation, reflecting the rhymes,
superficial lies,
The time of our lives
reaped with cobwebs in my mind

Patient smile, smiles at dusk
Watching the junkies fulfil their truth
No art carried, no starbucks cup
The rain and windows long boarded up
The blind man strikes matches at the wall
Lines for soup and crack pipe smoke
Eyes with no face
Ghost like glare.

My glasses are foggy
There's water leaking from my eyes
There's a lump in my heart
And a pain in my chest

The subtle reminders of a heart broken and never found

He sleeps
How silently he sleeps

Safe from drunken misdemeanors
Safe from incoherent talk

I think I love him
Second love,

It's unknown territory
It’s the Yukon

Should I leave this alone?  
This is unknown territory

Please do not look at my ****** interpretations  
Just please, just please answer

And leave it alone

I should sleep
I should let my self,
Let my self fall into the arms of him
And the subtle comforts of my greatly appreciated mattress
Let me sleep
And let my eyes rest
If only I was capable of letting people in; truly letting them in
And let us fall to silence

Drinking wine from water bottles
Losing the feeling of upper class
It is just another bottle to dive into
The haunted house on Kirby road
The single lit candle in the abandoned bathroom
Dogs barking on chains
Signs screaming private property
Driving through graveyards
Ashing on the dead
In small towns the gas meters don’t matter
As the youth hunt for fear
Disturbing the peace to find
The little girls grave.

Judge me, please judge me tell me what I don’t see, let me know what a stranger thinks. Is this skirt too short for you? Is my hair too tangled for you? Please I need to figure a few things out and this would clarify a few small holes that seemed to have appeared. You think my breath stinks? Ohhh I’m not wearing enough make up? Well speak up! Wait is it? Look I’m so lost at the moment that you might just need to leave a message. Find some paper and a pen on the floor there’s a sharpie over there, write something’s down, some f.y.i.’s for me to ponder on when I come out from under my bed. Let me quickly brush my teeth, the dynamic of my mouth is off-putting. My belly button kind of hurts and the speakers on my computer are disgusting so silence might be actually easier to handle right now. I have felt tipsy all day, swaying back and forth and my mouth is all scratchy and it hurts to swallow; like a shot. Where is Christina? Why hasn’t she called yet? The party starts at 9 and it’s already 8:37. I hope she is alright. She’s just probably laying in the tub, listening to the national or Angus and Julia. Who knows? I hope I see her soon I want to start drinking, and I am already high.

Time for sleep, the sleep of the week
So now it's sleep
Memory of tonight
The conversations
They are now "don't you remember"

*Fill to me that parting glass
Goodnight and joy be to you all

I am feeling more and more hopeless; the things I work for seem to be slipping,
I cannot remember the last time I was stress free, or smiled without force
Baking and braising seem to have become some of the only words I can muster
Whipping and traying are the only things I can get too
I have forgotten what it is like to achieve a dream: dreamt


At least I still have the power of solace, and the memory of time
The death of my childhood, and the birth of responsibility
I have become something my mother is proud of, and my father disowned
Empty spaces within the fridge magnets of lands afar,
The farther away, the closer to home,
Its slipping, life, loss, lust, its falling

Nothing to show for the things have done,
Killing myself and a hold over my lungs
I stopped eating when it slows me down
Shut my eyes, the doors are closed

Spare bricks for the wall that could never find a successor
Collect historical evidence, as we forgot the books we read
Seems the songs have all been sung, all the strings have snapped
Fallen battles man, fought men and children
Worms and you, filling your 2 bedrooms with another self made reality
MTV created a life of insta, what do they even contribute?

Snooki lives in a basement, and heroes in everyday rags
Hunter S. blew his brains out, where has his words scattered?

Little black books, with numbers and phrases
To choose from the moments I created
Disowned onto a 3-hole punch line

And yet my mind seems vacant with all these empty trophies reflecting…

Chained to a world our parents knew, stuck with the ideals of an old dream
Trying to find out how it all, somehow, disappeared,
Struggling to find new ways to make the pieces fit

Is there anyone home?
The piano rings the last note,
As the day breaks from another clouded illusion
**"Of what is and was"

Just one sip to recall the memories back into view
My liver may be constructed better than others,
It works with the ambience of the dark days
It rekindles the holes in my life, brings forward the words to express
A valiant attempt at understanding the wild ones, who beat their own hearts
A somber tune of regret and footprints never-ending
Seems the best decision is to continue on this road where the lights dim every hour
Some kind of vagabond following the stars to find something worth finding

When i drink i write.

But i need a book... this computer doesn’t do my scribbles justice.

I cant write in crooked lines or upside down in Microsoft word.

I need a book

And a pen

Please and thank you.

..a red crayola marker will do..

But now i need a page...

Cue cards??? Noo... sketch book?

Maybe

It’s not a simple heartbreak; it’s not a Band-Aid situation
It’s an incurable ache that is deep within my bones
I would love for this phase to be over with
I would love to get you off my mind
Its getting old, this is my final goodbye
You are embarrassing yourself by ignoring me
And I am embarrassing my friends by bringing you up
Goodbye,
It’s a big world full of people
It’s not just about you
It can’t be anymore
It’s a broken record
Seven years, bad luck
You’re so last summer
I would love nothing more than to forget you
Forget you ever had my heart
That I ever let you in
That I ever cared

Well it seems that I have spun out of control
Days running by, pathetic and unfulfilled
Turning around, to find the place I once found
But the road disappears as the next sunsets

So I’ll keep on walking,
Making music in my head,
For I have not been able to strum a chord
I cannot stay in one place,
Apartment syndrome
My lease is up next week

No place to call home,
I just keep on walking
Trying to figure out which way to go

Sell my things, to the greater good
Just a mattress, some clothes on my back
A half smoked joint,
I have been holding on to
Some point, I will learn to love
And confess my soul, in a simple 3-chord lullaby

I still believe, music makes us listen,
Say the things in such poetic justice
Combining all of our insecurities
All of our woes, and disbeliefs
Bringing us closer together, being able to trust us

The thought of romance
The glimpse of candlelight
The promise of lovely regret
And a flicker of hope
Though the shadow of heartache
Punctures through the ideals of love
The feelings linger as they did
That summer night, smoking bongs
And getting high,
The future solitude provides me
With the everlasting you

I am a sad person
I always see the dim light
I never try to be the down guy
Somehow I just find the bad kind

I can love forever
I'll bend over backwards
But I can't let go, of the household backyard

My childhood was hard
I spent days in the gym
Countless hours, pushing up
To get away from them
So I could escape him

My home life wasn't great

I seem to always see the dim light
Always seem to wish on a hopeless star
Of some place, wide, vast and far

Just a crack

A door, ajar

The girl with the book, sitting alone at the bar
Sipping her 16oz glass, head in her pages

A quiet moment, surrounded by strangers
To be alone in your head, but programmed to be present in the normality of reality

To write in a public space but to avoid conversation
But welcome it, when it presents itself

To live without a penalty of, if, things don’t go your way,
Or to have the lines and be able to overthrow them

To meet new friends and be introduced to others

And to find out that we all need a quiet moment
In the middle of strangers

Bring out your dead,
All willing bodies stand your ground
This is the art of ruin,
Hold your scaffolds high
And your morals low
Bring out the monopolies and the cash crop
Raise them on a pedestal made for some kind of Greek legend
A heroic fight for what was, and an attempt to untie the knot
Brake the shackles of man made, rediscover the stream
Search for the trickster, and watch where he goes

Invisible tears streaming down my face
These tears that you can not see,
It’s almost as if they were not there to begin with
Like its some ******-somatic reaction to something I have no longer
As if,  I might always have some kind of longing to the yesterday
How memory leads us to believe the past is some idealist future
When I find out what life has to offer, the stars that went out
We fall back in love with the light
And green grasses will pave the way to the end
And everything will fall into the place as it should, on the chessboard of life

I use substances
To plan an escape
To run away
With not even moving

Turn off my mind
My brain gets loud
All the wrongs I have done
All the times I was let down

I feel everything, and everything and everything

I leave these emotions, these pieces of my history
       Safe

Hidden behind, humour, hidden behind, lust, hidden behind, trust

I feel everything

And most of the time I want it to stop
And I fill up that cup
Take one more shot
Because everything I got

Reminds me of what I am not

My brain is mush
My head is pain
My thoughts seem to flourish under rain

My hands shake
And my skin, cold
I am young
But feel incredibly old

Inhale the smoke
breathe in and out
stains on my skin
and feel in your doubts

Exhale your quos
Like the night
And your nightmare of woes

Fall down, in a blanket of leaves
The feel of a stale breeze

Shiver in the presence of fall
Drink, another one, you just

Succumb to it all

Empty beer bottles,
Empty beer cans
Another night faded into story

I'm ashamed, ashamed of my quick subtle movements
Dropping containers
And forgetting to pick them up

Too drunk too type

Too drunk not to care


Ill smoke the ****, one more time
Let the music; the words of Americans
Sing me to my drunken sleep

Shoot me down
Exploit my death
To Monroe, Cobain, and Lennon
For all I care,
It's not like they died fashionably

Coming to the final project and final Artist Statement of my days at Emily Carr University. I am more confused about Art, and what makes Art, Art. I have tried different things, some better than others, some worse.  I have used different formats, different film sizes and different subject matters and focal points.  However, The last ideas that I have shared have not gone over as happily as I would have liked.  So, yet again, I find myself changing my project to please my peers and faculty. While doing so, I have lost why I fell in love with photography in the first place. Forgot all about my photography award in High School. Forgot about taking pictures of everything I see. I did that for me, and now it feels like Art has become some kind of popularity contest of who is more abstract and charged, something we’ve never seen before. But I feel everything is already been done, in one way or another.

With sharing this, I do not feel, I can even remotely come up with something completely new and have some philosophical subjective interpretation of whether a picture of a leaf is just a leaf, or a tiny glimpse of global warming, or a sign that fall has once again, fell.   To quote Andy Warhol, “Art is what is what you can get away with”.  Has art really become, whatever we can ******* our way through?

I feel completely drained of any creative ideas or thoughts. So I have decided to do something for me. I have taken pictures of different places or things in my apartment.  In black and white, with 120 film on RC paper.  They are on 11x14-sized paper. I decided that photography was once a way to keep all the moments of my life kept, safe and documented. And this is what I plan to do. Document the place where I have been banging my head up and down the 4 walls of this space, trying to come up with something magical. Instead, I took a more literal route, and focused on the space I was in, trying to not create something for an institution and something for my personal archives.  I think we as artists, and as individuals can all take some wisdom from Oscar Wilde when he said, “It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.”  As I am my own toughest critic, I do not see myself in the art I have created over the past couple of years, therefore I don’t feel as if my practice is truly reflects my voice as an artist. Thus, I plan to create something within myself for myself.

The media swings information into the air
Innocently as a child spreads a lie
In charge of their own idea of reality and knowledge
Casting glimpses and burning holes in the stories and bombs
Does anyone care?
Care
Enough to read between the periods and well rehearsed tears
Law binding, right breaking polices of how and when
Single file lines and caged boardwalks
A foot away from bar codes and eye authorization
Slowly morphing into a well oiled death toll
I could be helpless, you could be heroic

The Cold Dust Woman,
Crying on her Broken Porch,
Screaming for something to come and save her reckless soul
Trying to find something else besides the day to day,
A break from society, A break that will substantiate the differences between experience,
           And an alternative motive.

Something alike using a product,

To gain, and better yourself.
Individual.

I am a shell
Someone I used to know
A memory of a shattered soul

I used to be someone
Who had something to say
Someone had an opinon

I used to see the day
Sunlight, on my face
The clue clouds
And even sometimes, the rain

I used to

I am a shell now
So many burns and horror stories
So many heartbreaks
My chest of drawers
My infinite sorrows
I let them go unnoticed

They never see the surface
I hide them on purpose

I am shell now
An empty home
Looking for a new place
A new place to hang my hat
And loved

What if I met you in London, i would have an accent, I have lived there for years, and you are stopping by on a tour date for your latest album. And we meet at a coffee shop that is run short due to traffic issues. But we will cross paths again. I promise.

Today is the day for the followed few
The ears of old and eyes of new
The fallen propaganda waves for notice
This ideal, this condominium – you chose it  
The pavement is harsh and burning
The trees need salvation: they’re yearning,
For the day of sun soaked shadows,
Not this boxed world framed from a window
Pick up your shoes: pull up your socks
Plan a plan, before it all just
stops

Break still young one
Hold your candle high
Salvation comes to those who wait

Be still grasshopper
Don’t react so quickly
Time isn’t going anywhere

So still loved one
Weave in and out of the lines
Make some mistakes along the way

Time changes, sweetheart
When you least expect it
It shifts

Wasted away

You lie to your place

You hurt the pathetic and polish your name

Your insides ache, while you baptises the sin

You ponder extinction as you pollute the path

Sky sets and you’re wasting away
The music harmonizes your unknown place

Blasts through your ears crushing the thunderess waves
Killing your eyes and feeding your thoughts
It stopped,

I have nothing else to say


Today was the day I wasted away.

Music of the night,
Singing soft refrains of starlight and secret keeping shadows
The sidewalks disappear from sight, as I long for a streetlamp
To light my darkened days home
Commercials and commuters passing me by
As the life of my iPod slowly dissipates,
I hear life, without someone else’s interpretation of what
Of what I see, and of what I know
Forced to construct my own ideals, my own words of what
And of how, And if
I’ll ever make it,    
Proving to myself that failure is just a stepping stone to success
Before I pull my hair out and plump up like a pumpkin
I’ll tie my shoes and head for the door

The waves on the beach
Crash against the shore
The crows eating my left overs
The wind blowing my hair
And the mountains painted in the Irish sky
Off season, a desolate peace
No fog on the horizon
Only sand beneath me
The hilltop houses
The little shrubs along the grass
And the shore meeting the waves
With a gentle crash

Sometimes the world shatters
And I fall underneath the weight
This balloon of wonder
Crumbles me at the brink
Life is a game
Of there’s and now’s
The future and first times
Of I definitely know how
Our generation
So used to “I want’s”
Premature ejaculations
And notorious taunts
Life is a game
That we all must play
Roll the dice of luck
And sustain the pain
Be the greater good
Something for our children
And cherish the world
That we were given

The system works backwards
Unsync from the rest
My tears drown my face
Pouring from my chest

Lying still in this hollow hole
A raindrop falls from the sky
Hits the cold unworthy flesh
As I am lowered to be held high

There’s too many of us
Conflicting each other’s thoughts and porous
Too obsessed with our reflections
To see the truth behind the clouded horizon
Pay attention child, you just might not make it to 2030
The earth is shattering behind delusion
But everyone is so wrapped up in Facebook
No one looks outside their windows anymore
The sun is a burning memory

I cant breathe
These cigarettes are making me faint
These stairs I climb to come home
Seem like a never-ending stairwell, I can never seem to conquer
I fall victim to these beers to make me some lyrical and woeful
To unleash the words that writer’s block ties from my sobriety
To show I am a somebody who can write down the things people cannot bare to tell
To let these emotions I hide and tuck away,
Have them come to the surface, break way for the futile few who never could
The colours of the wind and the true colours of our society

I want to write
Sometimes I just want to write
Pen and ink, sight a beautiful sight
Create images, of dancing twilight
Ships sailing into the horizon
Wishing pennies in a fountain of
Wise hopes,
A kind bloke, seeking solace
And a clean robe
To seek shelter
And unwind of sorts

So many things to think about,
Not too many to talk about
Some things are better kept locked
In a dark foreboding too
The time misleads the hands and feet
Walking aimlessly around 100 mile town
Broken down and out of society
Away
The time misleads eyes and ears
Straining at the rainbow for the ever after
Stuck in the rain, drenched and far
Alone

Is it just the clothes that you are under?
Or is it your lack of posture and lack of personal portrayal
That weighs you down,  
The judging glances, and the marks your leggings make on your thighs
Its no wonder you are drinking your self to sleep,
Stuck in a rut, that no one sees you’re in
Just counting the cans and emptying the ashtrays
As your liver shrivels up and your lungs turn into charcoal
Spending your days in a lightless basement suite
Listening to British gentlemen, safe and tucked away,
From all the horrors of this crazed world of life and lust
All the sins I have committed leave me stained
With redden lips and a headache,
This glass of liquid ***** my memory and me

The world is spinning out of control
Just like my mind
When I had one too many sips
The world falling into gun control
And whites fighting for their hierarchy
The right to bare arms
Is nothing more than a figurehead position?
As another night closes with another beer
The time for sleep, has come
Or another somber, drunken attempt
At poetry

Stay with me,
Hold my hand,
Let me go,
Another broken heart's;  Last Stand

Keep me close,
Never let me go
Stay with me,
Let me face, the seeds that I have sewn

Turn on my light,
Let me see the shadows play
Shut my door,
Walk away and leave me;  stay

I should know by now,
Hold my heart, hold my head
I should know how,
To ask you to stay and let it be said

Memories fade
Everyday
They fade
You’ll forget the details
The place, or the time
The conversation, of why you could not stop laughing
Memories disappear
Slip between our fingers
And are lost like a grain of sand
Camouflaged as a painting
Dressed up like a white knight
They say memories fade
And that time heals all wounds
Let time wash away the guilt
The pain of today
Watch the clock evaporate into the wall
As the minute hand spins out of control
And my head starts to ache
A hole is bleeding into my chest
They fade; memories do fade
But they come back, clear as day
And the pain is as real
As dagger in your back
…. And it starts all over again

I light my smoke, as it all comes back to me
My ex was here, right there, beside me
Beers and red wine, will see

Cigarette time, passed bed time
We will see

He left

Some sense of wonder
Some sense of, if and when
He will ever ponder,
The fact,
That we belong

Because he knew my favourite song
And because we can tolerate us

Learn how to grow and uh
We found common ground
Between us
And how
We always seem to find
A little love between us

We used to be so close, under a blanket of clothes
We spent our days weighing the empty promises
And bottling up petty regrets and draining sorrows
It was really never all that perfect,
The stuff you remember was mine,
And the things I can not forget was all on you

Screaming, yelling, into stained reflections,
Mirrors telling me there is still some way of a connection
Mattresses against the wall, been curled up in a ball
Between the mattress and the wall

Everyone needs a place to be vulnerable
Find a time to sit down and try to be perfect
I am sick, sick of pretending we were meant to be
But I cannot get rid of you, and you still stay in my mind

Because I cannot let things go, I ponder, and dwell for far too long
And too long has been too long, and my life is spinning by
And I cannot seem to stop spinning
Our lives are no longer intertwined
And Ill be stepping aside,
Because our drive has subsided

And for the first time,
Ill still be able to look at you,
Where the pieces fall,
When the pieces fall,