Events in the world today make me fucking sick.

As humanity drags itself along a shattered glass highway, leaving a trail of shit and blood for us all to follow, I cannot help but feel a glimmer of rage that burns until nothing but hatred is left behind. Hate is a strange thing. Directed, it can change the world. Unsupervised, it can destroy it- but let’s not talk about hate right now. Let’s talk about what we can do in a world that wants to keep us all under control.

The pen is mightier than the sword, I’ve heard. And I think that’s bullshit. A sword is something that we can all understand, a symbol of violence and death, or a symbol of order and justice. Or pick your own meaning. No, the pen isn’t mightier than the sword. They are both tools, and the sword is clearly the better tool. The writer is the real lethal weapon. Rather the mind, the human mind, so hopelessly complex and always changing, always shrouded in mystery. There is the true weapon. Creation. Imagination.

One could read into the above phrase and discern what I have said, but at its bare face value, I’ve always hated that godamn phrase. It’s so…one sided and ambiguously frank. Why write with a pen and ignore the sword? Why not write with a sword?

Write with a sword.

I like to wield writing as a weapon. I like to administer punishment for the people who read my work. Force atonement. Just once, just once with one piece of work. As I peer into the abyss that is this planet and all the humans on it, I find that the inky black soup that has become our collective soul as a species churns with violence and anger. Opinions, words, thoughts, they are lost in that abyss.

Me? I don’t think I’ll change the world. Or maybe I’m being humble. Or maybe, changing the world is my goal, but I don’t think I’m up to the task. Or maybe I’m just blowing a thick column of smoke up your ass. Smoke that comes from a special source- a pile of burning bullshit.

Who knows. Who cares? Not me.

Wield writing as a weapon, godamn you. I see too many writers censoring themselves, lacking confidence, lying to themselves, procrastinating. It makes me sick. Writers used to be hard and desperate people, not the elevated “literary” pseudo-intellectuals that enjoy the sound of their own voice, a voice that sounds to me like a sloppy shit.

Teachers, professors, literary agents, publishers, editors. They all tell you to write a certain way, to be refined, to make changes where you don’t want to make changes, to write what they want you to write, all the meanwhile, you are dying. Your creativity is dying. Why be refined? Why submit to format? Who gives a flying fuck about MLA rules? Citing your sources correctly? Who fuckin’ cares if my essay doesn’t have a godamn intro, body, and conclusion? Who the fuck are you to tell me how I should be fuckin’ writing? Nobody, that’s who.

Fuck the teachers. The professors, the literary agents, the publishers, editors, bosses, friends, acquaintances, proofreaders, police, politicians, fuck ’em all! They all seek to stifle your voice with formatting, rules, and/or censorship. No, no, no, use your writing like a weapon. Wield what you write, don’t read it! Where is your spine as a writer? Where has your fucking fire gone?

Get dirty! Write violence, fucking, dying, breeding- write what you feel and only what you feel, and if someone doesn’t like it, who. Gives. A. Flying. Fuck?

My next project is going to be just that. It is going to be a piece, or pieces, of writing that will be written with a sword. Too long have we all conformed to what our “teachers” and “leaders” have told us. I am writing a piece that will attack, that will punish, that will make people think differently through personal connection, or by completely hating me.

Do I want attention? I don’t know. All I know is I’m going to write without boundaries anymore. Without rules. I’m going to strike this planet with my words, and inflict the pain and anger that I have screaming inside of me that I cannot let out. I am going to write like a savage, and there is nothing this fuckin’ world and all its bullshit can do to stop me.

Don’t let it stop you, either.