Nonfiction
Midnight Dreams of Recognition
by Jacklyn Heslop
by Jacklyn Heslop
Imagine if creativity stained the skin of the person it controlled.
Dancers would have layers of vibrant colors dripping down from their collar bones, streaking their wrists and rolling over their calves. No one could tell the true pigment of the painter’s hands from the rainbows splattered across their knuckles. The photographer’s eye would be a collage of each shot. Of course, the most vivid color of the body would represent their first inspiration. A brilliance that scars the body with the intensity of its presence. Wood chips, clay, paint, ink would mix with natural talents, and no one would know where the medium ends and the intricate patterns of their artistry began.
Where would my colors be?
I am a writer, but only one hand works to turn thoughts into stories. Imagine the surprise if a teenage me woke up with strange spots burned into the skin where I held my pen. I would have assumed that I had a defective pen, not that I was capable of some sort of creative act. What could my colors even mimic? I’d have purples for the tone of my prose, maybe yellows for the imagery of my poems. Honestly, I think I already have my stains. I have blue lines buried in the length of my forearm. I know, after a particularly real story, they turn red and leak out in jagged patterns—or at least some part of me feels so raw that I imagine this.
Maybe I lose my right to any colors? The words fall out of pretty girl’s smiles and awful boy’s actions, the grays of childhood trauma and pinks of innocent stargazing belong to the memory—not me. I led readers to soft, grass-covered hills. To wildflowers and luscious trees that kiss a wisping cloud. Sunlight touches the plants and warms the skin of those lazily grazing or napping on the open horizon. The winds pick up, waltzing with the branches overhead. Above, the blues of Earth’s ceiling inspire peace to all who can see it.
Before you are my words, but can you hear me? This is my space you’ve been invited to, my narration taken from a place I need for my sanity. You inhabit my space, you inhabit me, but where am I? I am alone, surrounded by the reader’s perversions of myself, but these are clones I will never meet. I am invaded and pillaged for metaphorical significance before returning to a personhood you’ve constructed. I am a writer, one missing from her own story.
Can I be considered creative if my presence is never noticed?
I don’t think writers should be stained like other artists. We squeeze out words from imaginary places to create stories from arbitrary lines. Our art blooms inside the minds of the reader. Each reader should then reveal a chest exploded in the most vibrant pain mingled with the thin veins of commonality between words and mind. The writers themselves are never stained, an unfortunate trophy missing from their status as an artist, but their influence lingers in the hearts of readers. Words ingested by the unknowing audience grip onto rips, or lungs, or dig their way into the brain infesting their victim with an experience once locked away by an unshared world within another human being. Left long enough, these words infect the body leaving a lasting stain. Of course, as writers, we want nothing more than to be able to point to some visible representation of our ideas and words, but paper with ink is a boring centerpiece. So, instead, we dream of a world where creativity stains the skin.
Dancers would have layers of vibrant colors dripping down from their collar bones, streaking their wrists and rolling over their calves. No one could tell the true pigment of the painter’s hands from the rainbows splattered across their knuckles. The photographer’s eye would be a collage of each shot. Of course, the most vivid color of the body would represent their first inspiration. A brilliance that scars the body with the intensity of its presence. Wood chips, clay, paint, ink would mix with natural talents, and no one would know where the medium ends and the intricate patterns of their artistry began.
Where would my colors be?
I am a writer, but only one hand works to turn thoughts into stories. Imagine the surprise if a teenage me woke up with strange spots burned into the skin where I held my pen. I would have assumed that I had a defective pen, not that I was capable of some sort of creative act. What could my colors even mimic? I’d have purples for the tone of my prose, maybe yellows for the imagery of my poems. Honestly, I think I already have my stains. I have blue lines buried in the length of my forearm. I know, after a particularly real story, they turn red and leak out in jagged patterns—or at least some part of me feels so raw that I imagine this.
Maybe I lose my right to any colors? The words fall out of pretty girl’s smiles and awful boy’s actions, the grays of childhood trauma and pinks of innocent stargazing belong to the memory—not me. I led readers to soft, grass-covered hills. To wildflowers and luscious trees that kiss a wisping cloud. Sunlight touches the plants and warms the skin of those lazily grazing or napping on the open horizon. The winds pick up, waltzing with the branches overhead. Above, the blues of Earth’s ceiling inspire peace to all who can see it.
Before you are my words, but can you hear me? This is my space you’ve been invited to, my narration taken from a place I need for my sanity. You inhabit my space, you inhabit me, but where am I? I am alone, surrounded by the reader’s perversions of myself, but these are clones I will never meet. I am invaded and pillaged for metaphorical significance before returning to a personhood you’ve constructed. I am a writer, one missing from her own story.
Can I be considered creative if my presence is never noticed?
I don’t think writers should be stained like other artists. We squeeze out words from imaginary places to create stories from arbitrary lines. Our art blooms inside the minds of the reader. Each reader should then reveal a chest exploded in the most vibrant pain mingled with the thin veins of commonality between words and mind. The writers themselves are never stained, an unfortunate trophy missing from their status as an artist, but their influence lingers in the hearts of readers. Words ingested by the unknowing audience grip onto rips, or lungs, or dig their way into the brain infesting their victim with an experience once locked away by an unshared world within another human being. Left long enough, these words infect the body leaving a lasting stain. Of course, as writers, we want nothing more than to be able to point to some visible representation of our ideas and words, but paper with ink is a boring centerpiece. So, instead, we dream of a world where creativity stains the skin.
