A feather duster to the brain.

At six months I was a genius. A walking talking wonder of the infant world. At one my puny hand grasped a pen and my tight scrawl wrote poetry and treatises on the troubles of a childish world. At two came music, previously background noise, and notes tripped from my chubby fingers and formed themselves blackly on acres of white page. Insofar as my tiny hands could manage I was virtuoso on all that I touched. At three, my legs sturdy and my heart brave, I raced around my world. My grip was stronger and surer and art poured from my fingers. In the years between three and five I perfected all my skills and read all the books my little hands could find. At six I was the star of my class and at seven eight and nine. At ten I burned out. Genius only lasts so long. After resting my genius fro several years I entered the curious twilight of the teenaged. I rested my genius some more and then some more. I medicated it. Fed it snippets of conversation and all the books my large hands could now hold. I rested some more. I sat back and let brilliance subside. I embraced the drab and the flat out ugly of my own nature. I lived to the grey. I got older and I carried on in set pattern. Habits are hard to kill and hard to make. I allowed the pointlessness to create me. And I created it. First love, as they say, somehow stays with you. And it lingered through dimensions, it followed me around. It clouded all judgement and cast a film of dinge over my eyes; all around me the shabby, the dingy, the death of expectation. I drowned under a thousand kinds of dust that crept into tiny corners of the mind and held court in the heart.

If I were a fairytale a charger carrying a prince would arrive. I am not and I am too lazy to be a princess. Besides, where is the value of a gift? A trinket is a lovely thing, it means what you would like, but the easier it comes, the easier it seems to go. As easy as it came I feel nothing as it walks away leaving an irritation of dust and disorder and hopeless, helpless, pointless aging. I feel the cold and the stupidity and the joy of sunshine. I feel contradiction and contempt. I want it all to go faster for me to ride faster and move faster and create and make and leave the tedium behind. And I am anchored – to my frustration – by a level of banality. I shake the dust off and it settles on my shoulders. I shake again and it clings to my feet. I dance and run and jump until I collapse into the piles of dust that lie everywhere. That act as sinkholes in the path. That would draw me in if I wished to be drawn. I have no wish to be drawn. I am perpetually six months delayed and a lifetime of confused. I am begging and giving up before the wind changes. I am sitting and thinking myself beautiful even when I’m not. I am giving up on the question of clever and merely following my interest. I am tying my hair back and washing the dishes. I am a kitchen sink drama though I aspired to more. I aspire to more. I am sweeping and dusting and sneezing and wondering why always why. I am sitting down and I am typing. I am plucking at my face and demanding beauty. It’s not your beauty, it’s mine. It’s not your cleverness, it’s mine. It’s not your point, it’s mine. I will be far more selfish than I have ever been because I am so sick of selling myself cheaply. I am fed up with the competition. I am fed up with you thinking that I want to be you. I am fed up with you thinking that I want to be like you. I am fed up with you thinking that I want to be liked by you.