Slam

In a way, it's reassuring to see the level of talent of the storytellers. In a way, it makes me feel better about the way I write and the content and the symbols I use. In a way I see myself as a more talented creator.

But I've never told stories. I've written them. I've thought them out. I've found metaphors and similes and turns of phrases. I've picked apart and deconstructed and dissembled reality until I understood it, then pieced it together so it would make sense to me.

But I've never told a story. I've never held in my hand a reality and shown it, like a picked flower, to my friends. I've never told a narrative with any weight or conviction. I have only seen from afar and reported in more words than were needed.

They tell stories. Silly stories, true stories, clear fiction and muddled truth, the now and the then, the flawed and the perfect. It doesn't matter what they tell. Not to them. And as I furrow deeper into the world of story, not to me. It's art, and it holds value because they say it does. And my stories have value if I say they do. And I can write what I think is important and what I think is art, but its value only exists if I am behind what I create.

They create wonderful things and I can hum and haw and poke holes in their delivery and their content and their presumption that anyone would want to hear them. I can prop up a false ego with wisps of superiority, or I can embrace a world carried by the cautions thrown to the wind, a new world of creation and exploration. I can stand still and be sure not to fall or I can run and slam face-first into walls until I find a direction that I love.

So I'm reassured by the level of talent. They are the runners in a race I want to run. They won't drag me from the stands. They won't beg me to run.

But I can run.

And I know I can run well.