THE INTROSPECTION CHRONICLES 17: READING TO AWAKEN TO LIFE

As a lover of books, of fictitious stories delved from the wandering thoughts of writers, have you ever met a character that stuck with you for a long time, long long after the story had come to an end, after the character's personality and role has been slowly diminished to a placeholder for a message?

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I have read some really interesting books in my years perusing between the cover of books and so have you too, if you think on it and some of these books have clung to you in some way that you are yet to fathom. Sometimes, you see a character in your dreams desperately trying to fix the problems that he or she may have found themselves in the book. They feel so real. Have you ever heard the voice of a character in your sleep? Maybe reciting poetry, or giving advice, or begging you to save him or her from uncertain doom? How does a character gets a voice? It is weird to hear worse you read in a book in a voice you have never heard, is it not?

I believe that a really great piece of fiction is that which leaves you changed, affected by the story it tells. I believe that when you read a great piece of writing, some part of its spirit is lodged inside you and that part identifies similarities to the story in real life and gives you empathy. Thus when you come across issues or events that you'd normally ignore in other times, you pause to watch because your spirit says this is what that writer was trying to show you. Although reality is not really as romantic as a poem or a piece of fiction, being able to connect the imagination with the real brings the verisimilitude of a literary piece closer to you.

Not ever writer is able to leave you reeling at the end of a book. I remember reading a fantasy novel, actually it was a fantasy series of about thrwe books or so. In one book, the writer ended with the main character trying to reach his loved ones with his magic and that one sided interaction was so compelling especially when he got to the part of the queen doing everything perfectly then entering her chambers and breaking down in tears. I think it is an Anthony Ryan novel, Queen of Fire or Blood Song. I can't bother myself to confirm the title now. That ending clung to me for a long time and still echoes each time I think on it.

When a writer for example, makes you want to cry with just the words within his or her disposal then that writer has done a deed worthy of praise. He or she has gone beyond the superficial to seek the very soul of the story and tearing it open, tugs you close and says; 'see, see, eat it, drink it, believe it, it is real.' That my friend is power. The power of the written word.

It is my dream to one day write something that will make you wander at night unable to sleep. It is my hope that one day I will write something that would make you pause in the middle of a page and tremble with pain, with joy, with euphoria, with tears that you cannot explain, with laughter that will shock you in its abandon. It is my dream to write something that will make you feel again, wake up from the dream, push the dead weight off you and breathe again. Is this not the job of the artist; to bring life, to give breath to dying things?

Emotions are what makes us more human. It is what brings out the life within us. When people crush their emotions, we say they are dead inside. We call emotionless eyes, dead eyes; an emotionless face, a blank face. If a writing makes people feel then is that not bringing to life? For at times, it takes a book for a man or woman to take notice and make amends. At times, it takes a story for a boy to become a man and a girl to find the woman within her. To waken deaden flesh is something a writing should aspire to. It should be a part of every writing's ambition.

In conclusion, I leave this poem espousing my feelings with regards to my art and to art in general. I wonder if you agree.

Is my art not a creation,
like a flower in its infancy,
learning its first ABCs,
breathing its first breathe,
wooing it's first bee?

Is it not a song,
touching the first note,
hitching the first breath,
breaking the first octave?

Is it not the touching of skins,
fingertips rubbing lips,
kisses in the shadow of the moon,
whispered promises no one hears?

Is it not the giving of life,
the propagating of seeds,
the disvirgining of the voices of little boys,
the impregnating of swirling seas
with little gods and goddesses of ink and blood,
of bleached beaches and shredded paper?

If my art is not heating the blood,
awakening from vampiric sleep,
the mind of you and i
then is it nothing but the ramblings
of an egocentric with an unstable mind?

If art does not give life,
if art does not make a man blink,
stop, stare, exclaim, then
what the hell is art?

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One day, you will read me and you will feel deeply. One day. Just you wait.

©warpedpoetic, 2019.