44 Ashan, 724
.
Unhurried and without a strong need to be anywhere, Kotton’s stride regularly faltered. For a few seconds he sauntered smoothly across the flat terrain of the city streets, but after a time, and without warning, he would abruptly stop and to what? To catch a glimpse of an unusual pebble at his feet. But there was something so interesting about this exact pebble, something that scratched an itching spot plaguing an arbitrary section of his brain that he desperately needed to scratch. So he would spend a moment or two observing it- its size, its shape, its colour, how half of its surface glistened with a sheen only made possible by dew or the aftermaths of a surprise shower. Nevertheless, it was enticing to the young man’s normally under-stimulated mind. Thus he occasionally placed a pause on his routine to fulfil his innate sense of curiosity.
The sky was dark. Clouds took up most of the sky. Although, there were spackles of sunlight that remained resilient. They struggled to peer through the cracks and crevices between the clouds, hoping for everyone's sakes that they would touch the surface of the earth. This gloomy mood wasn't a precedent for Kotton’s though, because for some reason he was gay, heart aflutter with the freedom of having no commitments. His eyes were a smouldering dark amber, a hue that would have put any caramelised honey treat to shame. And his leg and arm muscles didn’t ache as they usually did.
He was on his way home from spending the day at the public library. Modern art had been the choice of topic for his interests to focus on and it had been for the last couple trials. He couldn’t recall the last time he had been this intrigued by art. He often found it strange, too complicated for his black and white scientific mind to understand, especially those random paint splatters that apparently made millions. Couldn’t he create that very same thing on a canvas of his own? Why wasn’t he taking baths in thousands of gold pieces? Just thinking about it made him scoff and subconsciously throw his head to the side in disbelief. Maybe he just didn’t understand it, or maybe it was all just a sham, some big business capitalising on the interests of those so eager to believe in dogma. Whatever the reason, Kotton’s attention had drifted. Specifically to his front door.
He opened it as silently as he could, intent on seeing if Imogen would hear his arrival or not. As he entered and closed the door behind him, he turned to find his theory debunked. She sat in the very centre of the living room, eyes watchful, mouth athirst, and whiskers tittering from all the smells he had invited into his house.
Kotton shrugged his shoulders in response to what he thought was a question she had made regarding his late return. He unravelled himself from his bulky coat and placed it gingerly on one of the many hooks of his coat rack. Perhaps he was allergic to his house, because it wasn’t until just now that his legs started to ache. Every smidgeon of energy was syphoned from him and deposited at a site far away.
He plopped his weighty body onto the living room couch and instinctively grabbed for a throw pillow or two. As he did, he couldn’t help but notice the hue of his skin. It was a little more blue than normal. He was of Eidisi heritage, but only through generations of blood muddling. Was the unnatural tint because he was cold? Tired? He closed his eyes, uninterested in this observation- energy and effort were required and he no longer had any of either. Into a file in the dark recesses of his mind it went.
He was about ready to give into the night, when a little voice spoke to him and encouraged him to rise from off the couch and into a seated position worthy of proper penning. Kotton obeyed, inherently reaching for his pencil and journal, their placement reliably at the right corner of the coffee table.
There was a word on the tip of his tongue; it was something he had learned from his time attending his writing class. It squirmed like a worm on the edge of a hook until he was able to latch onto it and reel it past the water's surface. Abecedarian was the term and it was an ancient poetic form guided by the current common alphabet. It used mnemonic devices and word choice to embolden creativity. Another word for the term was ‘acrostic’, though Kotton liked the original for its purport of elegance.
He flattened his journal against the coffee table and stabbed his pencil at the beginning of the next free line. Then he took a moment to delve into his mind and its requisite contemplation. He needn’t create a poem embodying the entire alphabet, just a word or two, a phrase even, so long as it described his most recent thoughts and inspirations, at least that's what he chose to go with.
He settled with ‘Creative Scribe’- a little outside his comfort zone, but he was the kind of individual who thrived with the complications of a challenge. So, with his dominant hand, he commenced with small strokes of graphite against a vast expanse of vacuous canvas.
‘C- craving information
R- related to the
E- education of those
A- alive and
T- tenacious enough to
I- inspire a
V- vigour held by someone of
E- enormous passion.'
The first portion seemed legitimate enough and gave no doubt for Kotton to stew on, so he kept on.
'S- strength is ubiquitous, especially when the
C- call to help is so strong…’
He was more than ecstatic that he had lasted this long without stumbling upon a roadblock. Or was it writer’s block? He spent a few moments reflecting on what he had just written. He tried his hardest to spawn any additional inspiration from the words he wrote, but there was nothing there, nothing other than a random need to use the bathroom.
Which he did.
Which took a few minutes.
After he returned, fortunately with a new impetus and one driven in favour of his need to succeed, he was ready to continued. He didn’t even have to close his eyes and meditate for this one. It simply flowed out of him like the blood from an arteriole that had recently been stabbed by a thumb tack.
'S- strength is ubiquitous, especially when the
C- call to help is so strong.
R- realising my potential
I- is a feat in itself, particularly
B- because I am someone who...’
Damn, the channels he had opened in hopes of merging into a spark of inspiration did not in fact merge. They diverged. Only this time it felt worse, solely because he was so close to finishing this abecedarian formatted poem. Had he not taken decent enough notes during class? Why was he falling short of accomplishing his goal? He hadn't been tasked with homework necessitating him to create such a poem, but since it had been mentioned in class, wasn't he supposed to graduate knowing about it?
Breathwork did nothing for him at this point. Rather, Kotton was directed toward something else- mitigation of the contamination of his otherwise pure thoughts. The first thing he did was become comfortable with the discomfort. After following that, he administered a well thought-out mantra he had been working on for the last several trials. After that, his next instinct was to walk. Walking meditation had many benefits, including removing yourself from the physical point of stress and choosing to acknowledge other locations that revolved around silence. The silence (even whilst deaf) was the pinnacle of his meditative experience. Concluding his journey, he settled back down amongst the cushions of the couch and gazed once more at the work he was in the process of creating.
‘E- equates progress with potential’
The words practically dribbled off his tongue like a waterfall above a turbulent brook (not really). He had re-read the prior lines, used them to configure a path of topic and formulated a corresponding acquisition to the aforementioned topic. He felt better knowing he had accomplished something with such fervent appreciation as he did this poem. He even spent a moment mentally thinking about a waterfall and the surrounding environment embodying it before formally bringing all the letters of his acrostic poem together.
The young man reconfigured his breathing so that it was more in sync with the beat of his heart. Then, he chose to glance a second time at his original work before flipping to the very next page. He still had a lot of energy and it was directed toward the minstrelsy. Had elegies been focused on for more than a chapter during his course in writing? Perhaps not. With this in mind, the young man’s confidence shifted and incited a fixated concentration on yet another issuance of prose.
Elegies, he remembered, were poems with a content requirement; that requirement was that the poem had to contain the topic of death. As someone who was naturally inclined to pessimism, Kotton found himself attempting to stifle a scoff. This was no big deal for him!
He wrote,
‘I have no qualms against deterring the hearts of those who once loved me
For they have been poisoned with lust and aberrant feelings, unbound
The calming whispers of darkness has solicited cons near absentee
In place of the flowers that bloom and blossom above ground.’
The dimensions of imagery Kotton had introduced were reflective of touch and intensity; frequency and subtle discretion. He felt them all. He had chosen the words specifically and after monumental periods of deliberated contemplation. The choice vowels and consonants he inscribed onto the page were variables of haptic communication. The words were puppets to a glorious tome of diction. They reaped all the necessity of a boy crying wolf, but insisted that there was something more. His sentences may find their proper people- those who would appreciate them the most- or they may also be swept under the rug, undervalued as an author unfitting of their time.
Perhaps he would come forth with his musings and dial into the classic hilarity that was so attached to the framework of fame, but for now, and as it would most likely continue to be, it would remain a pipe dream- a remarkable, yet easily stunted display of talent lost under the dirt of some up and coming talent.
But what was he thinking? This was all for fun. All of this was for the thrill of having written something solely to impress himself, not others. Maybe in the future he would take his works to a public feature, but for now, he only wanted to make things that helped him think through his feelings, therapeutically assist him in his otherwise negative thinking. This was all a coping mechanism for him to address the things that made him feel things he normally shouldn't. With this understood, what he got from his practice was theory. He was able to express himself without the correction of an editorial staff. He was able to divulge his convictions and his views indecisive of someone else's opinions.
And with that completely unconscious tangent out of the way, Kotton was able to relax and find again his throw pillow. He was able to address it with the exact amount of attention necessary for him to decrease all the stress that accumulated during his need to write poetry.
The sky was dark. Clouds took up most of the sky. Although, there were spackles of sunlight that remained resilient. They struggled to peer through the cracks and crevices between the clouds, hoping for everyone's sakes that they would touch the surface of the earth. This gloomy mood wasn't a precedent for Kotton’s though, because for some reason he was gay, heart aflutter with the freedom of having no commitments. His eyes were a smouldering dark amber, a hue that would have put any caramelised honey treat to shame. And his leg and arm muscles didn’t ache as they usually did.
He was on his way home from spending the day at the public library. Modern art had been the choice of topic for his interests to focus on and it had been for the last couple trials. He couldn’t recall the last time he had been this intrigued by art. He often found it strange, too complicated for his black and white scientific mind to understand, especially those random paint splatters that apparently made millions. Couldn’t he create that very same thing on a canvas of his own? Why wasn’t he taking baths in thousands of gold pieces? Just thinking about it made him scoff and subconsciously throw his head to the side in disbelief. Maybe he just didn’t understand it, or maybe it was all just a sham, some big business capitalising on the interests of those so eager to believe in dogma. Whatever the reason, Kotton’s attention had drifted. Specifically to his front door.
He opened it as silently as he could, intent on seeing if Imogen would hear his arrival or not. As he entered and closed the door behind him, he turned to find his theory debunked. She sat in the very centre of the living room, eyes watchful, mouth athirst, and whiskers tittering from all the smells he had invited into his house.
Kotton shrugged his shoulders in response to what he thought was a question she had made regarding his late return. He unravelled himself from his bulky coat and placed it gingerly on one of the many hooks of his coat rack. Perhaps he was allergic to his house, because it wasn’t until just now that his legs started to ache. Every smidgeon of energy was syphoned from him and deposited at a site far away.
He plopped his weighty body onto the living room couch and instinctively grabbed for a throw pillow or two. As he did, he couldn’t help but notice the hue of his skin. It was a little more blue than normal. He was of Eidisi heritage, but only through generations of blood muddling. Was the unnatural tint because he was cold? Tired? He closed his eyes, uninterested in this observation- energy and effort were required and he no longer had any of either. Into a file in the dark recesses of his mind it went.
He was about ready to give into the night, when a little voice spoke to him and encouraged him to rise from off the couch and into a seated position worthy of proper penning. Kotton obeyed, inherently reaching for his pencil and journal, their placement reliably at the right corner of the coffee table.
There was a word on the tip of his tongue; it was something he had learned from his time attending his writing class. It squirmed like a worm on the edge of a hook until he was able to latch onto it and reel it past the water's surface. Abecedarian was the term and it was an ancient poetic form guided by the current common alphabet. It used mnemonic devices and word choice to embolden creativity. Another word for the term was ‘acrostic’, though Kotton liked the original for its purport of elegance.
He flattened his journal against the coffee table and stabbed his pencil at the beginning of the next free line. Then he took a moment to delve into his mind and its requisite contemplation. He needn’t create a poem embodying the entire alphabet, just a word or two, a phrase even, so long as it described his most recent thoughts and inspirations, at least that's what he chose to go with.
He settled with ‘Creative Scribe’- a little outside his comfort zone, but he was the kind of individual who thrived with the complications of a challenge. So, with his dominant hand, he commenced with small strokes of graphite against a vast expanse of vacuous canvas.
‘C- craving information
R- related to the
E- education of those
A- alive and
T- tenacious enough to
I- inspire a
V- vigour held by someone of
E- enormous passion.'
The first portion seemed legitimate enough and gave no doubt for Kotton to stew on, so he kept on.
'S- strength is ubiquitous, especially when the
C- call to help is so strong…’
He was more than ecstatic that he had lasted this long without stumbling upon a roadblock. Or was it writer’s block? He spent a few moments reflecting on what he had just written. He tried his hardest to spawn any additional inspiration from the words he wrote, but there was nothing there, nothing other than a random need to use the bathroom.
Which he did.
Which took a few minutes.
After he returned, fortunately with a new impetus and one driven in favour of his need to succeed, he was ready to continued. He didn’t even have to close his eyes and meditate for this one. It simply flowed out of him like the blood from an arteriole that had recently been stabbed by a thumb tack.
'S- strength is ubiquitous, especially when the
C- call to help is so strong.
R- realising my potential
I- is a feat in itself, particularly
B- because I am someone who...’
Damn, the channels he had opened in hopes of merging into a spark of inspiration did not in fact merge. They diverged. Only this time it felt worse, solely because he was so close to finishing this abecedarian formatted poem. Had he not taken decent enough notes during class? Why was he falling short of accomplishing his goal? He hadn't been tasked with homework necessitating him to create such a poem, but since it had been mentioned in class, wasn't he supposed to graduate knowing about it?
Breathwork did nothing for him at this point. Rather, Kotton was directed toward something else- mitigation of the contamination of his otherwise pure thoughts. The first thing he did was become comfortable with the discomfort. After following that, he administered a well thought-out mantra he had been working on for the last several trials. After that, his next instinct was to walk. Walking meditation had many benefits, including removing yourself from the physical point of stress and choosing to acknowledge other locations that revolved around silence. The silence (even whilst deaf) was the pinnacle of his meditative experience. Concluding his journey, he settled back down amongst the cushions of the couch and gazed once more at the work he was in the process of creating.
‘E- equates progress with potential’
The words practically dribbled off his tongue like a waterfall above a turbulent brook (not really). He had re-read the prior lines, used them to configure a path of topic and formulated a corresponding acquisition to the aforementioned topic. He felt better knowing he had accomplished something with such fervent appreciation as he did this poem. He even spent a moment mentally thinking about a waterfall and the surrounding environment embodying it before formally bringing all the letters of his acrostic poem together.
The young man reconfigured his breathing so that it was more in sync with the beat of his heart. Then, he chose to glance a second time at his original work before flipping to the very next page. He still had a lot of energy and it was directed toward the minstrelsy. Had elegies been focused on for more than a chapter during his course in writing? Perhaps not. With this in mind, the young man’s confidence shifted and incited a fixated concentration on yet another issuance of prose.
Elegies, he remembered, were poems with a content requirement; that requirement was that the poem had to contain the topic of death. As someone who was naturally inclined to pessimism, Kotton found himself attempting to stifle a scoff. This was no big deal for him!
He wrote,
‘I have no qualms against deterring the hearts of those who once loved me
For they have been poisoned with lust and aberrant feelings, unbound
The calming whispers of darkness has solicited cons near absentee
In place of the flowers that bloom and blossom above ground.’
The dimensions of imagery Kotton had introduced were reflective of touch and intensity; frequency and subtle discretion. He felt them all. He had chosen the words specifically and after monumental periods of deliberated contemplation. The choice vowels and consonants he inscribed onto the page were variables of haptic communication. The words were puppets to a glorious tome of diction. They reaped all the necessity of a boy crying wolf, but insisted that there was something more. His sentences may find their proper people- those who would appreciate them the most- or they may also be swept under the rug, undervalued as an author unfitting of their time.
Perhaps he would come forth with his musings and dial into the classic hilarity that was so attached to the framework of fame, but for now, and as it would most likely continue to be, it would remain a pipe dream- a remarkable, yet easily stunted display of talent lost under the dirt of some up and coming talent.
But what was he thinking? This was all for fun. All of this was for the thrill of having written something solely to impress himself, not others. Maybe in the future he would take his works to a public feature, but for now, he only wanted to make things that helped him think through his feelings, therapeutically assist him in his otherwise negative thinking. This was all a coping mechanism for him to address the things that made him feel things he normally shouldn't. With this understood, what he got from his practice was theory. He was able to express himself without the correction of an editorial staff. He was able to divulge his convictions and his views indecisive of someone else's opinions.
And with that completely unconscious tangent out of the way, Kotton was able to relax and find again his throw pillow. He was able to address it with the exact amount of attention necessary for him to decrease all the stress that accumulated during his need to write poetry.
