"Normality is a paved road;
it's comfortable to walk,
but no flowers grow."
Vincent Van Gogh
WELCOME TO
MY WORLD
Weird. Emphatic.
A dreamer.
A rebel.
​
If I have one issue with the world, it is that I was always much too sensitive to it, and it to me - well, just the opposite. From very early on, we have been quite incompatible, me and this world of ours. Why?
It's unfair, to begin with. It seems to give more to those who have the most. It's cruel. It's hypocritical. It's dishonest. It's constantly deluded... I could go on, but why bother? All there's to know is that being too sensitive to the world has been considered a burden by many throughout the history of human existence as we know it.
But I disagree.
POEM OF THE MONTH
​
WHEN LOST IN THE FOREST
David Wagner
​
Stand still.
The trees ahead and bushes​
beside you are not lost.
Wherever you are is called Here.
And you must treat it
as a powerful stranger;
Must ask permission to know it
and be known.
The forest breaths.
Listens.
It answers.
I have made this place
around you,
And if you leave it
You may come back again
Saying...
"Here."
No two trees are the same
to raven
No two branches are the same
to wren.
If what a tree or branch
Does is lost on you,
then you are surely lost.
Stand still.
The forest knows where you are.
You must let it find you.
It's true that historically, people who have felt the world and all it's wrongs too strongly haven't lead the happiest of lives... or the longest. But there are and have always been plenty of 'rights' in this world, too, and that happiness that they supply is experienced in that same way sadness is - deeper. And it can be found in the smallest of things like a seashell or a pinecone; in the sight of the hometown waves or the smell of thyme in the mountains.
Sometimes, during a happiness drought, we dig into imagination. We never know what we'll pull out from there - sometimes it can make things worse - but it's always something new and exciting. Something that helps to create a different reality when the one we all arguably share has got us sick and tired; a different world that is our own. It's not always great, don't get me wrong, but then again, what is?
​
This is a place to write from the heart. A place to 'write clear and hard about what hurts.' Feelings that are imperfect, honourable or selfish all the same - honest thoughts, affected by the world we all know, and the world within.
​
So, this is how I write. Read me - if you dare...
NEWS
The second edition of Jason Conway's arts magazine, 'Steel Jackdaw', will feature more amazing work by artist of different creative fields, and I am honoured and excited to have one of my short stories selected for this issue.
