I have always been the clay
Always.
When my parents moved me from my Italian home
To Hamilton, Canada

I was the clay
I learned English
Decorated a new bedroom
Made new friends
Dressed like I was born here
I became Canadian
Without a complaint

I was the clay
When my Canadian boyfriend
Fed me Canadian food
I ate it
When he wanted me to go to the bar
With him and his friends
I went
When he wanted to watch football
Which isn’t actually football
I watched too
When he started listening to country music
I learnt all the lyrics

I was the clay
When my parents had a baby
I changed diapers
Played ball with her in the yard
Was a good babysitter
Went to the playground
Played peek-a-boo
Read children books to her in English

I was the clay
When my boyfriend wanted to take a break
I said okay
When he wanted to get back together
A month later
I said okay
When he said we should move to Edmonton
I said okay
When he asked me to make Canadian food for him
I learnt for him
When he blamed me for everything
I nodded and said sorry
When I found him in bed with another girl

I became a bird
I was not the clay
I grew feathers
Colourful and long
Then I flew
And I don’t ever plan on landing

I found myself wanting to pray.
To lift up my words and let them float away.
Instead I put ink down on paper.
Hammering and shaping them to display,
This sense of wrongness and decay.
I’ve been reintroduced to the light,
Only to see that I’ve been made from clay.

she is a charcoal sketch.
she is dark,
jagged at the edges, rough.
she is only a first draft--
soon the pencil marks will be erased
and the best is yet to come.
not only is she a watercolor painting--
pastels bleeding together until
you can't find where
each emotion stops and starts--
but also the dark Sharpie lines
etched in arcs on said painting,
a beautiful composition of
daydream and nightmare.
she is cracked clay.
she crumbles easily, powder
breaking off from her sculpture
in such a way that
no amount of glue will ever reattach.
she may be broken and
cracked in all the wrong places but
sometimes imperfections add beauty
to an otherwise ordinary masterpiece.

It was red sand
Dripping through my fingers
Landing on my orange dress

I had been working with clay
Now my hands have grown
To be sensitive and alive

I press my hands against wooden fences as I walk
And to the tree's bark
Rough, under my, now delicate, palms

It was so new
I was feeling something real
For the first time

Clay had become my addiction
Something I could feel and sculpt
With a clear mind

I felt every grain of red sand
Drip through my fingers
And land on my course, orange dress

I wonder how far you will go to satisfy others.

I merely pick up things here and there,
but you have a tendency to compromise parts of yourself to fit a niche.

You are fluid,
malleable,
able to swiftly transfer yourself
from situation
              to situation.

This isn't always a bad thing,
but I can't help but wonder,

how much have you given up so that others could benefit?

You say you’re the author of your thoughts
But you don’t know what the next one will be
So if I were to erase your recollections
And insert all my life into you
Wouldn’t you be me?


Even the simplest daily choices would change
If your beginning wouldn’t have been the same
You wouldn’t be here today

I have an apple and a chocolate bar and I offer it to you
“If you really believe you have a choice, pick one of the two.”
You pick the apple and say it was simply your decision
A decision is a result of tradition, religion, and false intuition

“But I can still choose!”
Isn’t that how ideas are new?

I want you to stop
And make a color
Make a color that is new
And hasn’t been discovered
Make a color without mixing pre-existing colors
Now tell me your idea is original
Tell me your desires come from you
You are what you decided to become
You can do what you choose
But where did YOUR desires come from?


You are not living in these moments
You are not controlling these moments
You are the moment
You are not existing
You are not controlling you’re existence
You are the existence

Perspectives
are not the same anymore
Judgements
Who really belongs in a cell
Jesus, religion, heaven
Who deserves to go to hell?
How can we judge
How can we be blamed
When our events created us into who we are today

It is self evident to everyone of us that you can not be
what you perceive
I am not that wall
I am not that chair

You hear you thoughts
You see YOUR body
I am not me
You are not you
Even this is not something you believe
Because even that is perceived

Surprisingly, I don’t feel pessimistic
I feel like the world around me is more realistic
To the truth
And I am not where I belong
I am not even sure what this is supposed to mean
This was something unusual to me
But I feel a certain clarity
Awareness of my lack of freedom
makes me feel free
This causal state of our mentality
This
Is
An
Art

Who are you?
Nothing.
What is true?
A clay *** isn’t useful for the clay it is made of
Or the color
Or the texture
Or the size
A clay *** is useful for the emptiness it holds inside.