shit-alchemy

I made something hideous today out of index cards.
It was not my intention. I wanted something surprising.


I'd like to be able to accurately draw from my mind, to be able to make anything out of anything, or to write (at all), but miscarriages of my imagination (such as the card construction) do retain significance. However shittily you can compose a fiction, image, or object, you must love them like the ugliest babies--your ugly children--and you must know they resemble you more than they do anything else.

You will dress them up like sailors and send them to the mall to have portraits; have their unnerving countenances made immortal over a baby blue backdrop; frame those glossy prints and put them up in your bedroom and see them every day.

(keep in mind that their younger siblings will be better looking)

(they usually are)

But you mustn't hate what your hand creates, these things reflect the state that brought them about. Anything less than an immaculate approach can yield nothing familiar to truth or beauty.

Alchemists ignore their success in the creation of the pursuit. Gold is only valuable to those aware of it's worth; immortality only valuable to those who know how to live. The idea of turning something into something more is what is worth a life's effort -- turning it to gold is something else entirely.


I wrote the word claps on an outstretched flap of the index card abomination and it gave up and fell to the floor a few minutes later. It was beautiful.