(hi hi, a crazy chapter for this one. Tysm for readin :D)
[A BRIEF WARNING]
[The following chapter contains elements of violence, blood, injury, and mental illness. If any of these topics trigger you, please refrain from reading. Thank you.]
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nelophobia (n.)
ne·lo·pho·bia
The fear of glass and of the fragility of glass.
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Someone once told me art was not art unless it was dangerous.
It was my fourth grade teacher, back when art was a requirement for growing minds, and we were supposed to follow a series of color-coded boxes to create an apple or a pumpkin or some other fruit I couldn't remember. Likely because fruit was of no interest to me unless it was in a pie or cake of some sort.
The parent volunteers came in to teach our art classes; their squeaky carts and paint-stained canvas aprons giving off their purpose, brushes stiff with abandonment, water cups chipping at the edges, supposed watercolor paper with a tooth fine enough to be in the printer. They loved art classes because they got to feel in charge of multiple kids instead of just their own, and that kind of power made those soccer moms invincible, let me tell you.
I'd colored most of the squares in wrong, because I felt inclined to make my own fruit, and when one of them scolded me, my teacher shooed them away. She knelt next to me.
"What's fun about the same thing anyway? Art isn't art unless it's dangerous." She winked and let me continue making my forbidden fruit, soccer moms remaining disgruntled.
I was a bit too young to fully grasp what that meant at the time. But give me a few years, and I eventually found out.
Losing your mind was not an immediate thing. Losing your mind was not always a terrible thing either. And losing your mind didn't always need a straightjacket. Sometimes, losing your mind was wonderful.
When I lost it at sixteen, slowly and then all at once, it felt wonderful. High as Olympus and thriving unceasingly, I figured I should lose my mind more often. There was something so free in forgetting yourself. There was something so free in enjoying life without living.
The dangerous part of losing your mind wasn't losing your mind, it was being okay with losing your mind. That's why artists are an unpredictable breed to tamper with: it's far riskier dealing with someone in love with their insanity than someone terrified of it. Art could be dangerous, but what about the artist? What is more dangerous than someone completely unafraid of losing their own mind?
I think my teacher meant to say, "Art isn't art if it's not different." But there was something tricky about dangerous. Dangerous was different, but different wasn't always dangerous.
Sometimes, when the day is quiet and I'm alone to think, I wonder if this was where things between me and Haru began to change.
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The place where people always go wrong is identifying constant persistence rather than constant pattern.
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Suicide Buddies
Teen Fiction"My mother once told me there are three, and only three, truly defining moments in your life. One: When you don't know. Two: When you realize you don't know. Three: When you know. This is about the third one." --- Angel Young is going to die. Or at...
