ENG2500

Prompt #1

• Art and music have always been a part of my life. I grew up in a very creative family that always basked in the ideas of creativity. Wanting to venture off from my family name, I deiced at a young age that I hate the arts and wanted absolutely nothing to do with them. But little did I know that I loved everything the arts had to offer. I loved singing, dancing, acting, and painting (even though I wasn’t very good at it). I learned that I love creating, making something out of presumably nothing. When I wasn’t creating, I often felt stressed, even anxious that I wasn’t doing something more with my life. The creativity I feel is different than anyone else’s. The creativity I feel flows through my veins and gives me the adrenaline that I imagine a junkie gets. I sometimes feel greedy that I have all this creativity while others have none of it. I feel as if I only like to be in the spotlight or bask in the praise after taking a bow because I like the attention, something I got so little of as a child. What even is creativity and how does one define it? Am I more mentally ill because I am creative? I mean all the best artists were insane in some way. Like Picasso, Van Goh, or even Kanye West. Does this mean that I am no better than them? That I just use my creativity to distract me from my reality. What even is reality? Do I really feel like I am the next Jesus Christ of creativity, or do I just tell myself that because I want to be good at something? Art, music, and acting have been one of the only things I have ever excelled at. I’m not really that smart, and I honestly am not that nice, but give me a minute on stage, have me recite a monologue and I am golden. Golden, golden, goldy locks, I always used to be compared to her or even Shirley Temple. I was told I was cute, bubbly, with curly blonde hair. I always blamed my parents for not making me become a child actor because I just know I could’ve made it. I could’ve become something in my life, made a name for myself. If it wasn’t for the fact that we were poor, maybe just maybe I could’ve been famous already, amassed a fortune of wealth, and not have to go to a college that I don’t think I really like all because it was cheap.

Prompt #2

The trouble I have with food.

No one understands the pain, shame, and agony that food causes me. Food is supposed to be simple; you eat when you’re hungry and stop when you aren’t. For me, it is so much harder. For me, food is like a double-edged sword, useful in some ways but not in others. I lose to food each and every day. My thoughts, my emotions, and even my body is consumed with this voice, this voice that I cannot seem to control. I use food for pleasure and at the same time, I use it for harm. And yet every day I do it to myself but never seem to know why. I have tried getting help, and I have tried opening up to people about it, but no one seems to understand. They think they know; they think they can help but, they can’t. Partially, it’s my fault because I deal with it in secret. I don’t want to burden anyone with my problems. I also don’t want to feel judged because it is embarrassing. The fact that I let food consume my life, the fact that I break away from relationships with people, all because of food. I want it to stop, it is a daily habit that people don’t realize when I tell them. It happens every day, every single day from morning to night.  From dusk till dawn, I find myself in a manic state of mind. There are no thoughts that lead up to my binges, I simply act on impulsivity. The impulsivity consumes my mind and instantly leads to regret. The regret that I binged, the regret that I purged, the regret that I let myself down once again after telling myself over and over that I have had enough. I picture my relationship with food as a blanket in a heated room. At first, the blanket is comforting, delicate, and with reassurance but then, then the blanket gets too much for the hot room and all you can think about is how much you want it off your body. The thought of getting the blanket off your body consumes your mind. It’s all you can think about until it finally comes off. But once it’s off, you instantly are met with the feeling of nakedness. There’s nothing there to comfort you while you sleep. So, for every night you try to sleep, for every night you try to find peace in your somberness, this internal conflict rises. Will there ever be an answer?

Prompt #3

Aerin just hit me, but it didn’t really hurt. I am not very receptive to pain, both physically and mentally. Growing up, I always had a stone-cold wall around me. A wall like the ones in a prison cell, constantly around my mind, all the time, twenty-four hours a day, and seven days a week. I am numb to everything. The numbness isn’t this sad and depressing numbness but more of a never-ending void of white. White walls surround my mind but, in this void, I color. I color the walls, the walls that are so bright with colors. I paint like Picasso all over the walls, trying to make something out of this blank slate. And in these paintings, I find my joy, but I never find the answer as to why I am stuck here, in this blank void but in response to that I just paint. I paint the life I want to have. I paint the person I would like to be. I paint pictures for other people, encapsulating the beauty in them, the beauty that they don’t see. I find beauty in a void, the beauty to create something out of nothing. Every day that I wake up, the walls are washed of the paintings I created the day before and I start anew. I am granted the beauty of a new canvas, the ability to create something out of nothing. There is beauty in my walls, there is beauty in my pain. I want to take the pain of others and create a picture for them. A picture that is so beautiful, that they forget their pain, their worries, and their fears.  I want to feel their pain and use it for life, use their pain for the beauty of their life.