Slowly killing myself each day to be the person I thought everyone wanted me to be. Now I feel as shallow as my grave. The one my persona dug. And I worry that when I look at the camera, people can see it. The old me I killed. That hides just beneath the surface, underneath what was supposed to be a temporary act, not a permanent play.

My grave. My obituary never saw the light of day.

And I fear the only one who grieved, was me.

here Lies

7v7

dead as a doornail

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

and hanging

by a thread

of content,

and discontent

of continence,

and incontinence

strings of falsely

ringing consonants

whose truth says...

....to be continued.

03.12.2024

Death of a Content Creator challenge @AJAY9979

We met in 2019, a summer excursion.

I admit I was on the outset reluctant to go. Though, interested and supportive, on subcutaneous, surfacing, level I sensed instinctively that it would be hard. Emotional.

(Ericc Tascott, April 20, 1952 - March 13, 2024)

My husband had told me about him, with great fervor and esteem; how much he had learned from the man, and how he valued living and apprenticing together, creating and selling painted sculptures. Tasting the bohemian artist life, as it were, feeling Ericc had opened a door to a possible life he didn't believe could be made real-- to live solely off of one's artwork.

It's difficult, near impossible, to write on, without giving the impression of arrogance, presumption. To know. And yet...

The foundation, cracking, the traces of art before the stoop, the circle of familiar cats, the apologetic disarray on entry--- The scent of death is not new.

It's in the smell of glue, and paint, and varnish; in the finished and unfinished wood and clay; in the very pulp of paper, once dampened and now dried. It's not a sometimes thing; occasional; or project based. I'd been to other studios. I've lived one. It's a very visceral thing, sensitive, beyond object curiosity. It permeates everything. And I maintain that the working artist knows the lingering smell of Death.

To the art appreciator, those paintings, photos, sculptures, and other tangibles, take on a Life on closure. To the maker, it is as if one more nail in the coffin, one more boulder to the tomb, set loose. The things we make that bury us, in the byproducts of creative thinking-- it's the knowledge that death can creep in at any moment for the Content Creator, the instant he or she losses that momentum of expulsion. Loses out to depression or physical ailment, because in a twist of logic, that unburdening of "dead weight" is a Life affirming process, and when no longer making that "refuse," the Artist is already dying inside.

Going in, I knew he was no longer creating. Parkinson's, my husband told me. I understood the particulars of what that illness entailed, the debilitating involuntary tremors. My grandmother had suffered it. Her handwritten letters to her elder son almost illegible in final years, yet still she wrote, by necessity, unfailingly remarking on her scrawl (przypraszam za bazgroly) until she absolutely could not intelligibly hold thought nor pencil.

...the Dualling of life and death, is ever present, as a question unspoken: How are you ... Doing? I shook his hand. Not an ordinary shake, firm. Held. Our eyes locked, depth, and a cemented understanding: One of us.

Maybe numbers people (accountants, lawyers, bankers, etcetera) have the same sensation of Recognition. I'm sure poets and musicians do. The connection was strong. Painter to painter. He couldn't know, but it's as if we did. Whatever was wired in that handshake went through a lifeline, telepathically. Deuce the details.

I turned aside and fought tears and pride.

He reminded me of my father. He was a father figure to my husband. He hadn't compromised-- in a life full of compromises. He had insisted on Living. The biology of the Artist being to Create content. And when he stopped creating, back in 2019 or prior, he was already dying. I had the foolish notion of understanding something of the phantom pain he was feeling, as the amputation of the archaic vestigial organ of creativity, while he showed us around; where he used to work; what he used to do...

The understanding being that the Death of a Content Creator can come at any moment. The content, meaning, what resides inside the person: the Next.

I slowly leak my innards

Through the sieve of collagen

Holding out my outards

I messily spill my guts

Through the holes in my broken heart

Until those beatings finally stop

I keep my sleeve unrolled

To wear emotions clinging like lint

Easily pet-brushed off like dander

I wax maudlin by burning

An oversentimental candle at both ends

Until the light finally goes out

I live in peace

I go in peace

But I go

My epitaph

he broke 100 followers

so sad it could only be finished this way

with don't miss pre-announcement reels

fishing with bloodied wriggling click bait

telling the stream they'd get their times worth

there used to be value in an honest snuff flick

now commonplace ordinary uninspired plain

grasped gasped grappled gulping gunfounded

boring badly bungled poorly planned lacking

sticking stacked pills on my tongue onebyone

staring plump lingua stretched curled inviting

in tic tac toe patterns

X's & O's in devilish patterns

my last hurrah a yawn sinkhole

of shame as visible viewers fall

to enliven the shrinking feed

jazz up texts avocados shares

I take my gluck

loaded with one life

spinning slow toward rockets red flare

aim steady at my pulsing temple vein

and watch my clicks rise likes abound

a pity too bad loss for my immortality

it holds only 6 rounds

longing to peck away

to write out of this box

rising each day only to drown

each dawn brings new sorrows

still looking for possibilities

subconscious has taken hold

warm and wet, thick, down a cheek

not tears but blood

picking rather than pecking

parts fall away like lint

inside the screams are deafening

writing seems impossible and the only possibility

outside wounds cleaned

pecking must persist

or picking will consume

all content within

and death will come

before any living

perhaps a swan song

the last triumphant blast

alerting those left

to to live and not just be

for death will come

let my words be the comfort

even just one, heed and heal

so rest may, at last, be mine

content with myself

and the content that remains

Dawn had come and past,

the tulips never yawned and the dew only hardened in sticky clumps upon the leaves

of the shrubs and stuck to the trees like their own sap.

The Sun didn’t awaken this morning.

There was a fire display within the cosmic zone during twilight yesterday,

and here that darn Sun got himself intoxicated by gorging on falling stars that zig-zagged

through the sky

while playing tag with the meteors.

A fond reminder that every organic thing

has a boisterous adolescence;

and a grim caution

that even the Patriarch to life can have misjudgments, too.

He was great, we all were happy. He enjoyed every moment of the day. We were enjoying the 100th successful episode. The cake was delicious, We all went to the softdrinks corner. Suddenly we heard a thud followed by her shriek. When we turned she was frozen, with him in her lap with blood all over his mouth. He's gone what are we going to do? Are we going to mourn? Are we going to replace this great man who was the reason of our successful? Are going to do something for his pride? Or are we going to work for the other supportive and great souls who helped and are helping us till now?