Manifesto

Keep on going through self-doubt, criticism, a sore back, rejection, ridicule and terror.

Honour that tiny light that sparks sometimes when I touch keyboard or grip a pen.

Let go of pride, decency, even ambition.

Make that stab in the dark.

Dwell in uncertainty and make friends with insecurity. Be hungry.

Leap for that goal. Turn into a rainbow shoal of fish as I do it. Or a dead man in a stinking overcoat.

Kiss the scabs on my fingers.

Wander down some cold back alley in an unknown country, at three in the morning without my cardigan, wearing heels.

Stare without blinking.

Love loneliness, or at least offer it a whisky when it comes knocking on my door in the rain.

Stay with struggle.

Have the grace to fall.

Have bruised knees and no one to phone at two in the morning.

Watch. Listen.

Stop loving the sound of my own voice.

Let go of being clever, or the desire to be clever, or to be seen as clever.

Sever myself from ideas of success.

Feed beauty. Track wonder. Breath out fire. Dream.

Die not with a thorny blue rose in my palm but with a ridiculous happy look on my face and odd socks.

Love.

Take delight.

Run rings around inadequacy. Remember the blood in my veins even when waking up with a terrible hangover.

Embrace boredom.

Run out of teabags three lines before the end of the paragraph and still laugh whilst cursing.

Free fall.

Chill the fuck out

(it will never be what I want it to be.)

Accept/ever accept.

It is solace, so give solace.

It is generous - so give the shirt off my back.

Take those risks, the ones which matter.

Eschew judgment, especially my own viperous tongue.

Kiss fear on the mouth or at least one cheek.

Never give up.

Carry on swimming out until the yellow buoy is under my hand.