Liam James

Dearest Diary.

Once upon a time I was a boy, toying with my world and my heart and my mind. My diary was a giant moth in a blender- a shock of violent metaphor and beauty and nothing and emotion and everything, damn the details and damn the big picture, inhumane war prison of ice or burned plastic which imprisoned lost souls and launched charity missions and EU rescue teams.

It was not really poetry
Not really prose
It ignited my spirit like dust up my nose
and occasionally lapsed into something quite pretty

And as the years wore through the writing (revealing grammatical errors, teenage angst and the odd pacing issue) it slowly uncovered a story, like a slew of varnished skittles in a drained wishing well. Things happened. There were mob bosses, trinities, deaths and romances,

first loves, first kisses, first kills and first dances.

There was a girl, a writer. She was very kind to me. I abstracted, but we couldn’t collaborate.
There was a girl, an artist. She was very kind to me. I coloured, but we clashed.
There was a girl, a physicist. She was very kind to me. I forced, but we couldn’t form a solution.
There was a girl, a photograph. She was very kind to me. I just looked at her…

Then some time ago I came back from the void, and avoiding eye contact since then I began to explore my horizons and butter my toast… but I guess my horizons are wider than most. I’ve been high and I’ve been low. I’ve been to Venus and Africa, the other side of Liam James or Elia Alariel or Assythment and all over whatever and whoever I’ve been, and I’ve been all over. But now that’s all over.

And every time there’s a something or a someone or a one or a zero, my circuits short and a bullet or a music box triggers. My heartbeat slows and my circuit shows, and I inject a little something creative to make things interesting. And synthetic. A little rhythmic bubble-clunk of silvered crystal.

I write a lot… Music, stories, poetry. I get bored. But the journal is an emotional polaroid- a scrapbook of bad things and good things and beauty and love.

And I’m here with my pretty camera, shaking, clutching onto my remaining polaroids and wishing magic back. I’m hauling the sun across the sky and trying to make every day perfect, writing “world peace” on the marketing priorities board and bringing back dragons. I’m waging war on war and humidity and mind games and 9pm on weeknights where there’s nothing to do but climb.

And I’m here with my pretty camera, shaking, reading back journals from seven, eight years ago when I believed in a time where there would be dragons and world peace and writers and artists and physicists and photographs. Back when I had an army. Back when I played mind games.

Back when I was a boy, and my world and my heart and my mind were just toys.