**** head, struggling for breath
Final hit, before the red
Light flashes, warning to stop
Over dose, **** the innards
She never chose to lose this
Battle, between herself & it
Where'd she go, lost in space
Chasing herself, a dog with his tail
Praying to an above, to lead her
Straight laced, not swerving off track
Please God save me, her last plea
Before another day dawns, her final wish
Sketcher, tweaker, where's that syringe
The lights too bright, reality a curse
Rolled up in rehab, another ghetto kid
Not this girl, high class, white, moneyed
Lost to the night, speed freak, hopeless
Drowning in addiction, using again
Chemical structures defining her fate
Her brain the game
Disfigured face, unrecognizable eyes
Family love, isn't ever enough
Rushed to ER, another broken soul
Promises that drugs will save her
When only she can ever
Save herself
This time, she's not another life
Lost
The Gods sure blessed her, not with
Her wish
So she's packaged off to rehab
The third times a charm, right?

© Sia Jane

Who Am I?

I am a boy and a man.
I am a son, a brother, a cousin, a nephew, and a grand child.
I was a boyfriend, a fiancé, a husband, and an in-law.
I am a bachelor.
I am surrounded and abandoned.
I am a family man and a loner.

I am a homemaker and a handyman.
I wear the apron and the tool belt.
I am a neat freak and a slob.
I am an amateur contractor and a contracted amateur.
I am a dumpster diver, a recycler, and a decadent waste.
I am a glutton, a scavenger, and a scrapper.

I am a friend and an enemy.
I am fun and an annoyance.
I am a lover and a hater.
I am creepy, cruel, and harsh.
I am tender, loving, and inviting.
I have a foul mouth and tender lips,
Drenched in jagged, soft-serve words.

I am a painter, sculptor, draftsman, sketcher, character designer, photographer, graphic designer, fashion designer, kitbasher, customizer, and crafter.
I am a reader, a writer, and a poet.
I am the Jail Baby, Ryan & Lisa, The Phoenix, The AntiFather, and The HEYMAN!
I compose symphonies of visual and intangible imagery.
I bring form to thought.
I destroy,
I create.
I am an artist.

I am a geek, nerd, freak, and otaku.
I have been punk, goth, prep, white trash, and metrosexual.
I wear glasses,
But only as a sick joke.
I am beautiful and ugly,
Clean and *****.
I am unique.
I am predictable.
I have changed, but am still the same.

I am a techie,
An electronic ******.
I am cutting edge and old school.
Digitally signed and sealed.
I am analog and obsolete.

I am an adrenaline addict.
I can chill, maybe slow,
But never relax.

I am blue collar, tradesman, and service industry.
I am peon and ****** on.
Oh, but I have done the ******* too!
I have been hired and fired,
Bought and sold.
I have worn the uniform,
I have said, “**** the man!”
I am the proletariat,
I am in charge.

I am a student, dropout, and teacher.
I am class clown and teacher’s pet.
I have learned, forgotten, and taught,
But never learned my lesson.
I don’t listen to what I’m told,
But always do what I tell.

I am a genius,
I am an idiot.
I have intelligence, but often lack the intel.
I am naïve, but wise.
I am right and wrong.

I have philosophies and ideas,
But no religion.
I have desecrated and blasphemed,
Prayed and praised.
I have lusted, envied, and coveted.
I am guilty and innocent,
Pure and soiled,
Good and bad.

I am a driver and a passenger.
I am an explorer and a shut-in.
I am wild and free,
Caged and stifled.
I was warmly wrapped in my blanket,
But burned through it.

I have rode, climbed, and conquered.
I  stood still.
I jumped in.
I have fallen and been defeated.

I have been abroad,
I have been nowhere.
I have drifted.
I have settled.
I have led and been led.
I have been in and out,
Here and there,
Around and AWOL,
On the run and trapped.
But, not everywhere.

I have applied,
I have procrastinated.
I have worked my fingers to the bone,
I have slept it off.

I have fought and fled.
I have quit.
I have endured.
I am a winner and a loser,
A champ and a chump.

I am fake,
I am real.
I have lied, cheated, and stole.
I have been honest, fair, and generous.

I am selfish and selfless.
I am a gift giver, gift wrapper, and gift taker.
I am a thief and a philanthropist.

I am insecure and confident,
Confused and absolutely sure.
I am proud and ashamed.
I am complicated and convoluted,
But simple to please.

I have blind faith and guarded suspicion
I have secrets,
But lie rarely.
I accept everyone,
I trust nothing.

I have pointed the finger,
Only to turn it on myself.
I have held grudges and forgiven.
I have trusted and misguided.
I have been Judas and Jesus.

I am a maniac,
I am sane.
I have been strong and weak.
I can keep it together,
But prefer to break it apart.

I have bled.
I have healed.
I have been abused and neglected,
Coddled and protected.

I have been kissed and punched;
Hunted, wanted, and arrested,
Ignored, overlooked, and invisible.

I have loved and lost,
Lived and learned.
I am a soldier of misfortune and opportunity.

I have blended in.
I have stood out.
I have stood up.
I have backed down.
I have been backed into a corner.
I have all the space in the world.

I have seen, interpreted, and perceived,
I have ignored, dismissed, and been blind.
I hunger, want, and need…
I am satiated and content,
But never at peace.

I have been misunderstood and underestimated.
I have been put down, put up, pushed away, and let in.
I have been known,
But never entirely.

I have raged, cried, smiled, trembled, and laughed.
I have been depressed.
I have been happy.
I have been suicidal. I have felt death.
I have been lost and found.
I have been broken, then fixed,
Stitched, yet glitched,
Scarred, but whole.
I am alive.


I took the chance,
I let the moment slip.
I walked the straight and narrow,
I ran down the road not taken.
I dream; some whole, some shattered.
I go with the flow, but don’t let the waves take me.

I am shards and reflections,
Machinations and reactions.
I am translucent pieces and parts,
Assembled and disheveled.
I am the big picture still focused on the details.

I am the sum total of heredity and experience.
I am not,
I am more.
I am everything and nothing.
I am a walking contradiction.
I am human.

I tried to be you,
But didn’t know what that meant.
I am me,
It’s all I know.

Who are you?

'Do you understand the incredible godliness of a straight line?!' my madman said to me.
'Not quite,' I said, 'But I am not beyond hope to instruction."

'We cannot see a straight line in our world,' he said, 'But we thought of one nonetheless. Something came from nothing, ex nhilo, ex nhilo.' he said.

I watched his logic at work from my place at his right hand.

'Have you ever tried to draw? Straight lines are hard, try drawing a sunset. Try to draw your hand.'

I did, though I'm not sure it was his intention.
It came out wrong.

'Look! LOOK. You see? The heart of the world is but a skewed imprint when we draw it. You cannot see the world, but the lines and shadows of the world are there, and it would take a lifetime to truly draw them.'

My madman took the pen and drew a perfect sunset, with my hand clasped around it, as one would grip something so fragile, so quick to vanish.

'There are sketch lines in all we see, the world is creating a drawing in every microsecond, every heartbeat creates universes.'

His hand shook and the pen fell, ink at his feet and his hands. He looked upon them.

He rubbed the ink on his palms.

'The world is the greatest artist... And we?'
He lay his hands on the page before him, and the truest image of a hand he could ever draw was in front of me. I saw many sunsets in his fingerprints.
'We are the imitators.'

I smiled, and my madman smiled back.
Or at least as close as he could come.

Oh, Andy-
speak to me in paints:
red, yellow, blue

When I told you I wouldn't be good at this,
an inability to sketch hands that punched at everything leaving me weak.
Keane's sorrow filled eyes upon oil made more sense to me.

I was never angry or mean, just sad and hopeless.
Lichtenstein was more your speed with obscene images of ******* women
and dialogue of broken hearts.

Van Gogh never made sense, but his attention to detail caught my eye.
To not know what goes on in your own head is identifiable so,
my head is art crafted by Picasso.

they hospitalize you once you've lopped your ear off
when giving a part of themselves to a lover.
I'm not cut out for this- the starving artist,
the tragic sketcher,
or the natural- born painter.

I've calloused my hands,
shed tears on pages of sketchbooks
put paint that looks childlike
and nothing worthwhile,
in all the time spent learning,
I've never learned how to be an artist.

I thought it was the mantra to be pained and miserable,
but you accounted for bold choices and vivid primary shades.
I feel betrayed, that my art alone, isn't enough to be good.

They will never frame my name,
or immortalize flaws in which could never be erased.

Like our conversation in my dream:
"I can't be mean." -Me
"Killing yourself isn't much different" -You

So Andy, what is the color I'm feeling? If it isn't blue?

—V.H.

Squiggled lines on a page where school work should be,
But her mind can’t rest whilst she’s writing a story,
Multiples stories, actually
Well, at least their endings
Looking at things in every perspective,
Trying to understand who went wrong and where,
Sometimes ending in happy ever after,
Other times ending in angst and despair.

A hammer has a face and a claw
Let the painter paint , the sketcher draw
Two rowers to the right , two rowers to the left ,
one man only at the vessels helm* ...

to write and autobiography:
   better to write an autobiographical sketch,
like this one, for example,
a very same-same / mediocre /
uneventful / predictable /
     it only matters that i have
bothered to look at the clock and the date:
9:50am / ten to ten a.m.
    6th of december two-thousand-and-twenty
(6/12/20) -
because otherwise than that...
it's a "make-me-believe-otherwise"
sort of a sunday...
as such... yes... an autobiographical
sketch...
         if nothing happens by a standard
definition of what does happen
when autobiographies are written...
then at least: this happens...
language happens /
    my use of the english language
happens... out of nonchalance...
        or good humour...
             or a must celebration of
soberness -
               since, well... since at some
point weeks / perhaps months ago...
a saturation point was reached
and... drinking and staying up into
the night and scribbling became...
pickled in... monotony...
          to have drunk so much as
to be bored of it...
       or rather: to have drunk and
as a consequence... sat and then shat
on one's laurels - for lack of a better
expression... i.e. written ****-all!
or written something, which was...
substandard... which is worse than
having written: zilch! nada (ナダ)!
if Charles Olson can be a self-described
'archeologist of the morning...'
(i am deliberating whether
to spend £40+ on the i maximus,
gloucester poems - hardcover -
please... any cheaper?!)
   then i can be an autobiographical
sketcher...
exhibit (a)...
                 otherwise it only insinuated
itself yesterday, it being a ghost
of an idea that probably haunted
by mind for periodical bouts of
dangling etc.
             some better wording (rephrasing
necessary - but not here
or now)...
   the term "****" doesn't really
do it justice... but it's most certainly
a variation of archeology -
   notably / concerning what?
how the moon looks from beneath
a tree...
    in winter... when the tree is all
but the bare branches -
           like a splintering bone of sorts
like something akin
to the alveoli in lungs...
     but obviously less cauliflowers
and less pride of a full crop of hair...
/ no crown of leaves...
but it's how the moon looks from
behind those twigs...
     arrested and devilishly motionless...
add to this image the odd
cough-up of a murk / a murkiness
of a tease that might be
a freezing of candy floss...
that is a cloud...
    and... how nature abhors a vacuum...
and i guess i am simply
standing in someone else's place
just prior...
if it wasn't written down...
   it is now... but it probably was...
but not in this way...
and since man is the antithesis
of nature as such that
nature doesn't hoard and man
tends to - notably time and time
wasted...
   but how rooted into the earth
one can                                                 be
to stand before this archeological
find...
which probably isn't to be treated
as something archeological...
but peering at the moon
in said way.. with added derivatives
of elevated sensation...
and i am, most probably...
that same-same variation of
primordial man...
               perhaps not him:
perhaps with a syllabary or perhaps
with a D'OH     R'EH
       ド       レ       ミ           ファ(fa)
            ソ (so')                        チ          
                   (la la la la la,
la la la la la, la la la la la ' la la, la, l'ah...)
to sing a little...
               10:17...
                   and that's that;
i suppose i now have enough justification
for the day to begin, proper.

doodling
emerging from a
cloud of Freedom..
allowing the finite sketcher
to sit this one out..
allowing a Recognition
of our Freedom to guide a
free pencil to proclaim
the reality of our Freedom..
as lines and colors
shine in a unity
Recognized...