"I have been a..."

In 2003 I took a writing workshop with Diane Di Prima. She wanted us to practice "holding paradox." We would free write for 5 minutes and then sit silently for 5 minutes.

One of the 5 minute exercises was to finish the sentence, "I have been a..."

This is what I wrote:

I have been a...

Dancing dirty vacuum sucking in oily foul air
Dancing munchkin happy about nothing
Bottled up bursting acid
Snail watching the world can't move fast enough
Hysteric
Car wreck
Damp dirty towel
Blubbering crybaby
Sourpuss
Black plastic vase - aren't my flowers pretty though?
Orange sweet fruit only fruit
Black dot, a bullet ordering all and every list
Lonely raven perched up the top of the watchtower tree
Fluid disappearing stream
Major chord then a dissonant one (on purpose)
A multipurpose room
Hole-y socks
Poisonous mushroom
Dried squid sweet but tough on your teeth
Button, not a buttonhole
Fruit rollup stuck to the floor
Major catastrophe report
Empty empty vast empty dark room
Set of spikes ready to strike poke make you bleed
Warm cornbread cupcake sweet and grainy
Little apple, not the big beautiful juicy one on the branch
Set of ribbons pink and curling to the floor
Metal ball on a string swinging in perfect time, one of many
Cat my eyes go up my paws together I hate it when my fur isn't going all the same way
Sticky candy
Dirty comb
Toilet paper holder
Set of dendrites twitching feeling conveying firing
Soft velvety leather, so warm and smooth
A wind-whipped sprout so happy to be at the beach




The bottle one caught my eye today. Over the years I've drawn bottles. Lots of bottles and vessels. I didn't realize I was doing that until starting this blog and going back through sketchbooks. A metaphor for my life? Or just that bottles are always in front of me when I feel like drawing... No more bottles for me. I prefer to be the wind-whipped sprout at the beach.