¡Hola España!

Finally doing a lot for me, thinking of myself and starting to fall back in love with my life again. Goodbye for now North America. See you later with refreshed eyes. Hello adventure, art, love and experience; Hello Spain.

sometimes i can remember myself sitting day after day in cafes and browsing thrift stores alone in my spare time, always enjoying the solitude and at the same time wishing to meet someone new - in a dreamy, longing unrequited way. and then i did. and was in love and have been for some time. but still, somewhere there’s that same yearning within for something that i haven’t found and perhaps can never quite find. some sense of absolute understanding, a kind of exchange of personal expression that transcends relation in any conventional way. because i never understood how a man could appreciate something they don’t understand… even though i knew i was capable of it myself.

(Source: youtu.be)

current work in progress, untitled sketch

surfacing

through the most basic and extreme notions of human existence, it is with bittersweet pleasure that i can finally say i’ve experienced all that i envied to experience as a child. i was naive to value the kind of pains endured in adulthood. or maybe i was too wise for my age, wise enough to value the hardship i would later find - for as a child i knew that the heart was worth baring. Even with all its sadness, as i witnessed in the eyes of adults, i knew then that it was meant to break as well as swell for others. but in action; in use, the adult heart will give question to its purpose and ask itself: “is it worth the pain, to love?” this is the most challenging upheaval, for the challenge itself must be taken on faith. That when the heavy climb up this mysterious hill, the hardship of the trek will pay off. Because we, as creatures, fear the unknown. we refuse the work unless there is absolute reimbursement of equal or greater exchange. and even though we know deep down, we have to learn to accept that we have no control. we have no control.

remember this little ditty? she’s been buried in my sketchbook and i’m slowing regaining my acquaintanceship with ‘er. there’s actually a quite exciting series of drawings in the same style and motif pushed back in the tomb of sketches past. i’m coming, i’m coming… just distracted with severe depression, lifetime strain putting stress on the only things worth living for - but i have a sketch that will really knock your socks/shoes/toes rings off. more to come before i leave the country (hopefully!)

via con dios

MA

oh, i’m still drawing. see it soon. oh by the way, 2 weeks in spain. excited to say: see ya kids, soon. creeping up on you.

life and creation in slow motion. i spend my time losing sleep over travel plans, life stresses: work… play… taking care of day to day business. free seconds are spent staring blankly into sound, making mixtapes and thinking. when my mind is broken from the worries and to-dos, i can sit and bob my head to eternally fresh beats and visualize cellular structures… i can try my hand at tiny black strokes on this piece as it crawls towards the finish-line… i can spend my time wisely with the man i love. the key to all things is balance. that key, like most things, often gets lost in the couch cushions or are in my other pants. but today, today feels like that gentle breeze to enjoy before the violent winds knock down my mental foundation tomorrow.

so, you know, take it easy kid.

MA

Facebook.com/MakaylaArmijo →

psychological warfare

i recently found myself in a heart pounding nervous conversation with the absolute recollection of guilt. we talked about the eccentricity of most artists, which brought me back to Dostoevsky’s passage in the idiot where the writer explains his theory as to why intelligent people; genuinely original  with genius-type brilliance are leaps beyond sadness in any day to day sense than average people could be. they are not only darkened by the heaviness of their own situations or the weight of understanding the complicated sorrow of the world but rather, are fueled by their own self-doubt beyond depression - to the point of never ending madness and extreme mental and emotional anguish. this is why the most intelligent, generally, endure greater suffering as a steady constant through out their lives. this thought i griped my mind around tightly because i can relate. i’d be a liar if i were modest enough to say i don’t consider myself intelligent. however, i am modest enough to doubt myself, my thoughts, my skills in sharp bitter bouts through out my days - to the point of severe self-influenced pain. at some points to self-loathing humility. the only person who has witnessed this kind of weakness in me assures that it isn’t so.

my subconscious has been torturing me with reoccurring nightmares of a certain kind… for three years this june. and with a fragile mental state chipped bare from constant bouts of self doubt and minimal self worth, these images have burried me alive in my own fears. my mind is my enemy. i’ve been known to wake up crying or calling out at the end of each - always ending in half excruciating ache and half relief. (usually, eventually able to be calmed and comforted into realizing the waking world is different.) i woke up from the last one a few weeks ago -(having just dealt with a recent one before that a few days earlier which i had to snap myself out of…) i woke up quietly and suddenly this last time, peering straight ahead into darkness with this kind of calm fear on me. i felt as thought shaking but could barely move. extreme agitation followed. i could hear every sound, my eyes wide as if i never had slept. this shock lasted about a minute until i could turn and seek comfort in the arms of the man i adore. he sometimes talks in his sleep - usually grunts or muffled ridiculous words. but as i nuzzled my head between his arms and burried my face in his chest - i could have sworn right then and there that i heard him say something clear as day that surprised and shocked me all the more. i asked a question, inquired further hoping for a specific response and did not get it.

my mind, (as was just stated), had been playing cruel games on me in my dreams for years and had pushed me to the point of paranoia - searching for connections and reasons to believe in my greatest fears. i was broken. if i’d ever accused myself of mental breakdowns before - i was severely wrong until this point. it occurred to me only the next day while quietly and sadly reflecting why i heard what i heard - if it wasn’t what i thought than why were those the words i chose to hear? is my own mind and mental state not to be trusted? why do i dream of these situations when i know they wouldn’t happen in real life as rational thinking cannot permit? as well as my trust in others? can i not trust others because i know i can’t trust myself? why am i so human? is this a test? from who? myself? somehow, it is so. that even in the heartiest trusts built on people so deserving - it is not them that i doubt - but myself. i do not doubt that the people who hold my heart are worthy of it but rather i doubt that my heart is worth the hand who holds it. and if i can see it so clearly what stops them from seeing it too?

and i will close with expressing that these are my feelings, i do not apologize for them, i am not ashamed of them nor do i seek pity. i simply wish to share myself as stupid as the idea seems at times. i am an absolute pessimistic idealist. i feel crooked in mind and body and serve to say that i hope to speak, even if it is to myself. 

Primary Colors

its been a tough couple of weeks. i’ve been preoccupied - working long hours for pennies. the last three days have been great. a small break for my mental health has heightened my sleep cycle, performance and concentration. i drew this little ditty for a pal with the most giving intentions. this is a rarity and i hope its appreciated.

i imagine the thick texture sliding across the ridges of my fingerprints. every stroke has become stiff and chunky in its way and the colors melt together without mixing - fat sloppy smudges elegantly placed with precision. glassy glazes deepening the view as if the scene is taking place forever frozen far away, receding from your gaze into the wall; the skyline; history. i love to look at paintings.

pardon my modesty.

MA

KUNM

This Sunday Feb 19th at 8.00pm mountain time (10.00pm eastern) you should tune in to KUNM public radio or stream it live at kunm.org for the spoken word hour. This Sunday is going to be particularly interesting and I urge you to listen because the DJ that night has chosen to play a track or two of my poetry. Rad.

germs is peoples

well its nearly 10 am on a thursday and i’ve done nothing this week but work too much, sleep too little and eat strange things in strange bouts of frustration and fatigue. i’m writing this on a computer at CNM and my stomach hurts. i got here to the the free volunteer tax help place at 8.30 am… it was already packed with 43 people in line ahead of me and they hadn’t even opened yet. by 9, one of the head hanchos announced that it would be hours before they could get to anyone who wasn’t on the first sign in sheet and to go have breakfast, take a nap, make sure you have the documents needed and come back later. if i go home i won’t want to come back. i waited in the horrible little brown room for maybe 45 minutes to an hour before deciding that, for my physical as well as mental health, i had to leave. the dinginess was characterized well with the horrible stench of people - unhygentic bodies that embodied misfortune, illness and lack of monetary security. babies crying, mothers coughing, men yelling, slurring, laughing. it was like being in the terrible mucus filled lungs of america and we all made up one collective lunge. a huge whooping comsuptive hack running with the truest diligence for handouts and breaks. we deserve it, the working class. but not this way… back to the grind and slow steady ache of waiting waiting… take a number, sign the sheet and have a seat… waiting waiting.

In case you don’t remember, i’m a poet. Heres the album, out now for free check it out and tell anyone who likes poetry.

SWAN NECK is now available for download. →