A difficult existence - Sydney Lashmet
Mixed-media
The project is an expression of events that happened in my life. A short story based off my own personal experience. A poem talking about my experience through healing. And a collection of collaged photos meant to represent that time in my life.
What I call a good life
What I call a good life
I want to talk about life
I want to talk about living
Because I have died
I know the feeling of a damn knife
Did that catch you off guard
Well, then let’s start
For, I have a secret
Movement
Attraction
Connection
Your body and mine
Body language
And your own damn thoughts
Do you ever get lost in the details that fall in between?
Come close, listen to the sound that slips from my soft pink lips
Whispering about this billowing, fleeting feeling
Do you know what it means to live?
Heart racing, blood pumping, tummy tumbling, lips quivering
Thinking every damn day, every second whether this – whether you are enough
Pay attention,
I’m going to talk about something that might make you queasy
And I am oh so sorry dears, but it will not be easy
Chapter one
Death
The lick of a thumb and a finger pressed against a flame
Your flame
And while the smoke may linger, your hope fades out
Dead and lame
You see,
Even after death
I’ve looked, I’ve searched
For something that is within me
But in a world full of trends
No one seems to want to
Bend, the rules
Originality
Or maybe that’s extinct
I can’t tell because we all have the same personality
Who would’ve thought?
Mass media and seven billion people linked
But there’s still hatred and violence
So, where the f*** do we find life?
In a world full of noise and way too many mean boys
(And don’t mind the reverse sexism
I know quite a few girls that have made themselves exes)
But back to the constant creaking, ringing, beeping
I find myself screaming
Just to find a little f***ing
Peace, of mind
When you look up, when you look down
It’s a real niche when you shut the f*** up to figure it out
That life
Is silence
It’s the quiet we run from
Too dense for our sensitive ears
Too loud and obtuse
To wrap our minds around that deadly noise
Are you scared?
With what comes with the all-knowing quiet?
The only omnipotent being that my atheist mind bows down to
And although I have died
Ceasing of all noise has brought me back to life
So let’s hope there’s hope
For our own generation’s sake
That with confrontation and pain
Someone will climb on top of this f***ing world and scream
Silence
When I died
A legitimate heart
A righteous mind
Phrases that sounded so smart at the time
But maybe I was just too naïve
Because I fell from a very tight line
A lifeline cut by the one I thought I loved
And he laughed as I fell
And the final link broke the cuffs
Hand cuffs I didn’t know I had on until I looked up
Screaming to the shell of me
Getting farther and farther from my very own reach
And then everything felt still
And it was silent
When your body feels this devastation
You see,
Flight or fight kicks in and the motivation decides to scream
This is not your time
And let me tell you I chose to fight
I grabbed myself by my shoulders and said,
We need to reconfigure
And create a stir
A bright blip
Because I have learned that
I want to last forever
And I never want to say never
I learned to live
And with this
The realization came that our communication sucks
Our generation is f***ed
And we’re all still shit out of luck
While I’m stuck in Mercury’s retrograde
The rest of the world is taking Xanax with Gatorade
And while we are speaking, we are reeking
Havoc on our damned world
So I ask
Can we cry
While we die
Because while I resurrected
I look around and see way too many kids thinking they can live off their parents checks
And they don’t even see that that is not living
And I cannot live in a world that is a dive
Diving
Deeper and deeper
In the dark blue
Because our glue is broken
Chapter two
Is about you
I told you how I learned to live
And I’m not telling you that you need to relive
A tragedy, a heartbreak
Or that one day your four months old puppy drove you so f***ing crazy that tears streamed down your face
But I’m asking
You to think
To find quiet
So that
A legitimate heart
A righteous mind
That these smart sounding phrases have more purpose than just to die
And that we
Can dive deep
Deep into the blue to reglue
What is broken
What’s wrong?
I told you this wouldn’t be easy
And I’m sorry for being so cheesy
But this lesson won’t unlock the answer with the snap of your fingers
Think on it
And by dawn, honey, maybe you’ll see that this life is a little like cancer
And maybe that is just the answer
It sucks our youth when we are near
And laughs in our face when we ask for a f***ing break
It will gladly cut our lifeline
Just like the one I thought I loved
And I wish so badly I could lay my head down one last time on him
So instead of a heartbeat, I could hear his heart break
I may sound bitter
But every once in a while, revenge tastes a little better
Chapter three
You have the key
Igniting your flame
With the flick of a red edged end of a match against a course surface
Yellow, red and bright
Smoke swirls above in the light
Life
This path will not be easy
And already I said once I was going to make you queasy
Pay attention to your thoughts asking if you are enough
Say yes
Because now we’ve covered
The definition of living
Heart racing
Blood pumping
Tummy tumbling
Lips quivering
Come close and whisper to the next person you see
Let them hear your whispers slipping from your lips
It’s your secret now
Movement
Attraction
connection
Their body and yours
Let them question
Their thoughts
By catching them off guard
And I died once
But I want all of us to live
And breath
And that’s
What I call a good f***ing life
A difficult existence
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The audio recording above is a poem reading representing a time in my life that left me feeling like I might never live again. Anger, defeat, and acceptance are all emotions I still feel, but they help me cope.
A difficult existence” is a three-part project meant to represent personal experiences in my life. A short story that cuts between the present and the past, while I try to decipher how to live again. A poem exploring how I learned to try and live a good life once more after it was taken from me. And a collection of collaged photos that I put together to portray moments in time from my point of view. Trigger warning: this project may be difficult for anyone who has experienced domestic violence or self-harm, and for those who have I stand with you and for you.