The Necessity of Creation

To create is to destroy.  To make one thing, you need the ruins of something else.  It is necessary to do everything from sustaining life to creating comfort.

It is necessary, I reminded myself, to destroy.

I would say that it was the creative part of me that led me to do it.  The part of me that lived for art and beauty and all the lovely things in between.  I wouldn’t say what it actually was.  I would let the truth burrow into the back of my mind and hide it’s true nature.  

So I sat on the floor and tucked my feet beneath me, paper in my hands and flames in the fireplace.  I let the words of others flow through my head as their whispers slowly became the truth I needed.

They had all said, hesitantly, that there was one way to do it.  When you needed it, really really needed it.  When your head was empty except for the wavering desire to create, to do, to make yourself worth something, even if for a moment.  I let a shaky breath out, relaxing my shoulders and straightening my posture.  It was what was necessary to me.  It was as important as water and air and the companionship of another.  It was a human requirement, I tried to convince myself, and it would be worth whatever it cost.

I opened the bag next to me and pulled out the contents.

A tall wick candle.  A box cutter.  A binder.  

Hands shaking, I held out the candle to the flame and watched as the wick caught.  It was so delicate, and as I pulled it out I realized that this was my chance.  

I wondered, for a moment, if I was going too far.  I didn’t entertain the thought any further.

Candle held by the tips of my left thumb and forefinger I closed my eyes (Ignoring the thought of any dripping wax).  Another shaky breath out.  In Homer’s famous epic The Odyssey he devotes the opening to the summoning of his dear muse.  “Tell me, O’ Muse,” he begs.  Was he quivering, speaking that line, as I quivered then?  I found myself relaxing my shoulders again as they had tensed.  

“Tell me, O’ Muse,” I whispered, voice so light I could hardly recognize it as my own, “The story of my own, the story I can build.”

I could have sworn, in the quiet of the night, that I could hear voices alongside my own.  As soon as I tried to focus upon them, however, the fire swallowed them whole.

I slowly opened my eyes.  The candle was burning bright, brighter than it had only seconds before.  The wax beneath my fingers, though warm, was nowhere close to burning me yet.  I glanced down beside me and focused on the binder lying there.  

It was old.  A gift from my seventh grade English teacher.  It was purple.  And it was so, so full.

With my free hand I flipped it open and let my eyes pass over the pencil written pages.  Everything was there.  Every story I had ever written.  From when I was thirteen and fumbling to come up with a coherent idea to only two weeks previously.  My life, thinly veiled by fictitious characters and events, was documented by the words in the binder.  There was also one very important thing about it’s contents.  Every story in the binder was the only copy.  

Balancing the candle carefully I snapped the binder rings open, picking up the thick stack of papers with my right hand and setting it down directly in front of me.  I stared at the first page, the words burning into my brain.

You live and breathe the atmosphere, the infatuation with the lifestyle cloaking your mind in its exciting glare.

After a few moments I tore my gaze away from the stack of papers and reached for the last thing by the bag.  The boxcutter.

It was necessary.  I repeated it in my head, a new mantra.  It was necessary.  

I think, for a moment, I’d almost started to cry.  

My hands were steady as I picked up the boxcutter.  I wanted to close my eyes again.  Instead I just pressed the tip of the blade to my left thumb, right where skin met candle.  It stung, but pain was far from my mind.  

The ivory base of the candle faded to red.

I closed the boxcutter, tucking it safely into my bag, and switched the candle to my right hand.  

Another shaky breath out.

It was necessary.

A shaky breath in.

A steady breath out.  

Shoulders braced, I ran my left thumb down the top paper of the stack, smearing over the words.  I watched as they disappeared under brilliant red, words that would never again be read. 

You live and breathe the atmosphere, the infatuation with the lifestyle cloaking your mind in its exciting glare

Words that would never again be written, either.  

“O’ Muse,” I spoke steadily, words flat and without emotion, “O’ Muse, speak to me.  Bless me, O’ Muse.  Grant me your ethereal gift”

I ran my fingers along the edge of the pages, all of them now hidden under the top one.  They would never have their words read either.

To create is to destroy.

“O’ Muse!”

I wrapped my right hand tight around the candle.  The flame was now a blinding white, one I couldn’t allow myself to focus too hard on.  A steady breath in.  I picked up the stack of papers, their words and unseen stories and forever young characters singing to me, in a way.  I heard their voices and faltered.

To create is to destroy.

I stood up and took two steps forward.  

I would say that it was the creative part of me that led me to do it.  But, crawling under my skin, the truth begged to differ.  It was a greedy part of me.  A part of me that said no to the simplicity of the day to day.  I needed to make something beautiful.  I needed the world to see me do that.  It was necessary.

“o’ muse”

I dropped the papers.  For a moment they fell in slow motion, pages separating for but a moment and feeling the soft brush of air.

Then they landed in the fireplace.

As the tears finally made their way to the surface and began to fall, I heard a voice.  Resting against my shoulder, whispering into my ear exactly what I needed to hear.  Exactly what was necessary.