Tag: winter lows

When the Pages are Stuck Together

I was supposed to come back a few days after my last post. Well, I hold up my hands, it’s been more than a few days since May, but before the calendar year is out. Take it or leave it. I’m giving both. So here is something for this dark day. Pure human, untweaked, unsanitised, no washing out the blips because they are MY WORDS. Do folks even do this anymore? I’ve read so much that’s run through AI before it’s posted (it’s catfishing using words instead of pictures). I query those pristine lines when I don’t know for sure, and the text feels off. But more often than not, I know, I feel it in my bones; the lies, the manipulation. And I’ve seen those sanitised, helped-off-the-messy-floor words from folks I know—they run a thought through a processor then post a stream that’s void of human voice. Why? Does it make their thought more eloquent, make them appear smarter (appearances are the substance for some), or does the trickery furnish validity to a voice? The truth is, it kills it. Nullifies the tone and heart; the AI shushes your truth with buttered-up bullshit that lacks humanity. It lacks grit! It doesn’t make these fearful folks seem more put together. It dumbs the real down. Faux intelligence and faux art—these are not enhancements, it’s just disrespectful bullshit. Can you tell I’m not a fan of AI in art or writing?

I’m here, tapping the glass as though I were speaking a stream, and my notes have their own life, a voice unsanitised. I’m far more comfortable with the letters on the board than those stumbling from my lips when my vocal cords shake, voice cracks, or paces in a little silence between executing the words. Sometimes they (I) fail because who is really listening anyway, like those who never really read. They see a quote, hear someone else’s summary and think they know the experience or read the book (no, the synopsis or quote was not the book). I’ve noted the curious look in wavering eye, the way the pupil changes when the stream bursts happen to flesh ears. I’m frequently told I’m poetic or passionate, but I feel the ponder addition of a little ‘crazy’. Sure, all three are true. Anyway, even in the digital print now, it’s still me right here, you can fucking well trust that. I sometimes wonder when they ask. Like the pleasantries of how are you and what’s the weather like, they don’t care; it’s just noise. And I’ve never understood that. When it’s asked, and it matters, I don’t know how or what to give. Which edit should you get? Which version can your palate take before you grab the pitchfork and execute me? They’re all real, just naturally diluted with fresh water because I know how heavy full-strength is. My being has been attacked since dawn, learned defence behaviours I’m intimate with. I’ll carry that without any of the huffing and puffing ghosts of complaints from the so-called help. Learn to listen beyond the mirror. There’s always a filter, some knobs to turn and tweak, and a few buttons to release the script. And no, it’s not inauthentic as those who bay for blood in some self-righteous regime may cry. It’s self-preservation built from experience. Experience of challenging what I know the outcome will be (maybe it won’t this time. Maybe they’ve grown. Maybe it’ll be different than I think), misreading signals, thinking their eyes or title or ‘closeness’ meant safety, but it never did. Never does. Because behind every question there’s expectation, and I’ve sometimes missed when they want their answer, not mine. Anyway, that’s all by-the-by, but I’m haunted in Winter. A bag of fucking ghosts murmur; my body thrums in ways that have the floorboards quaking. I’m unsteady, a little weak, like I’ve forgotten to eat. But I’m routinely feeding others, so I must’ve had a bite. Maybe I just sniffed it and told my brain that was enough. The scent is enough. Like teasing about love, I can pretend I know what it feels like to receive that, but I’m a magnet for liars. I take them in like strays and orphans, make them a bed and make them safe enough to play jump rope with my intestines. They’re twisting, and I need to send them away. Maybe I need an organ transplant; the recovery is perhaps less painful.

Fuck. It’s a ‘Long December’ (Nah nah nah nah. Nah nah nah nah nah nah. Nah nah nah nah, yeah).