'Nevermind how you get the answer", Submission 9 by Charlie Arnold

Papers never come easy. If my teachers only knew the creativity in my writing was from Saturday nights 87.3 midnight LP run and a little help from what my friends like to call post-its. The worlds those two paint seems never ending.

I don’t know how my teacher can accept this kind of work. Sure everything makes sense then as words drip off my fingertips. And that’s not me trying to say it’s easy. One time I watched the words as they fell onto my keyboard. When they played Hello Goodbye I was praised on “my insightful satire into happy Sun shine hippie beatniks.” I barely had time to fix spelling and the larger of the grammatical errors.

It’s going to start in about an hour; time to get ready. Can’t forget the speakers. Bose sound reducing headphones really work. Outside antics, even the party down the hall, can’t penetrate these bad boys. God I’m tired of all this writing. I’ll be happy when it’s all over. I must be 30 minutes in; things are starting to get strange. Hungry, I should eat one of those frozen burritos. I wonder what they’re going to play tonight.

“And here we are tonight. We’re going back to the early 90’s. Our man of the hour helped lead the grunge scene from the garage to the stage.”

"Untitled, Unknown Artist, Red Period", Submission 9 by Lee Martin

Days. It had been days since he’d slept. That’s not true; it just felt like days. Days of flinging himself around his apartment, scribbling on notebook paper and napkins, punching the drywall. Then sleep. Broken, unrestful sleep admittedly, but sleep none the less. The guitar had a nice dent in the back where he’d kicked it.

Fuck you, muse

Your face in my mind I cannot use

To dream of you just isn’t right

I’ll sleep alone but broken tonight.

Crumple. Punch. His hand swelled where he’d driven it through the walls several times. Why did she have to do this to him? Show up out of nowhere and mess everything up! Beautiful, yes; perfect, maybe; inspiring? Only of thoughts of longing and frustration.

Shit. FUCK. DIE.

Crumple. He’d paid the price of his devotion; the least she could do was instill in him some seed of creativity…nurture the ability to become great, if she was unwilling to be with him. DIE. FUCK.

The second eviction notice showed up…the past due rent was one matter, but the other tenants disliked his fist coming through the wall in their living room.

The metaphors wouldn’t come; no hyperbole, simile, comparison, devotion, eloquent language to compose into a nice little package and drop like a bomb on the world. Oh, how they would have praised him! “Perfect expression!” “How inspired” They would gather around in hordes to listen to his plight…his young voice quivering on the notes that needed stress, and sliding over the rest like water.

Nothing. Void. Blank. Dark, like night. No, blank like a canvas. SHIT! Crumple. Punch. His hand was clearly becoming infected now, but it wouldn’t matter soon. Enough was enough. He had decided the score for his magnum opus would consist of one simple percussive note, like the period at the end of a sentence. So refined, so complete…ending almost before you knew it had begun. He opened his 10^th story window overlooking the park and smiled. She briefly raised her head at the sound of the shot, then laid back down on the park bench.