Graphic by Florian Klauer
Stop. Stop while you’re ahead. I’m through. Every time, it’s the same thing. I don’t want to hear it and I don’t want to hear you ask. Stop asking to read my work. I don’t care if you’re interested. That’s it. Wait. That’s it. That’s the problem. Your interest.
The thing is, that’s always been the issue in people asking for my work. Well, not people. That’s always been the issue in boys asking for my work. You hear I’m a writer and suddenly you’re a connoisseur of the literary arts, aren’t you? I mention my favorite authors and poets in conversation and you become an expert in the analysis of their work. When I talk about how language is made up, I watch your speech change to match mine. The charade is getting old, and every time, I grow more and more exhausted by it.
Frankly, my surprise is running thin and all that’s left to replace it is apathy. I think I’m through entertaining you. I’m not going to let all I’ve worked on, all my blood, sweat, tears, rage, love, effort and energy be a cute commodity for you to check out because you’ve got too much time on your hands. My work is not up for debate. I could care less about how you view my personal essays and whether I use too much hopeful and flowery language. If you disagree with my analysis, please refute it on paper and not in my instagram DMs. And for the love of god, do not ask me if the most insignificant mention of my piece is about you. I’m sure there are plenty of other avenues by which you can flatter yourself.
Now truth be told, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t complimented by your interest. Having more eyes hungry for my words, my work, framed my effort as something with value. I felt that all the energy I’ve penned into words had been worth something. Worth the attention of boys who thought I had something interesting to say. I shared my favorite pieces, pointing out my favorite lines and hoping they were your favorites too. I showed you my work line by line and I even let you in on what the author was living through at the moment of writing. I waited patiently for your response. Where I went wrong, however, was perceiving your interest in my writing. When I thought your eyes were locked on the page, it turns out they were stuck on the writer herself.
I’ve had enough of the false interest. I could care less about your opinions on my writing. I don’t want you to search my name on Google and see what shows up. Time and time again, I’ve finally come to realize you couldn’t care less about what I have to say. My essays, my stories, opinions, they’re secondary to you. You’re more concerned with the fact that I’m a quirky English major who perfectly fits your idea of a starving artist. How I absolutely nail the look of a tortured artistic soul simply trying to make a living as a freelance writer. To you, I look the role and play the part perfectly. I still hear it ringing in my head: “You write personal essays? That’s cute.” Isn’t she great? She looks good AND she’s a writer too, how fascinating! Please. If I wanted to be cute, spending the rest of my life trying to write would not be the way I go about it.
Whatever I work on, whatever I do, it exists as a supplement. Another tacked-on side note to the cardboard cut-out of a person you’ve made me to be. Anything I create, anything I pour my whole being into is all just an additive: not essential to the main product. The falsified interest and curiosity in what I have to say serves as a means to an end. Just a step to reaching a goal. Number one: Flatter her. Number two: Read her writing. Number 3: Bullshit a response. Number four: profit.
I’m not a cute, eclectic thing who writes as a hobby. I’m not a manic pixie dream girl who thinks playing on a typing machine will get her somewhere. I’m not your starving artist, I’m not your tortured soul writing as a way to cope with the world. I’m a writer. My looks are the least interesting thing about me. I write the way I breathe: as a necessity and as the most integral thing to my existence. There is not a world in which I exist doing anything else.
I’ve staked my life on my work. And I’ll do it again and again and again. I won’t be some celebrity politician or some supremely talented surgeon. All I am and will be is a writer. That comes before everything. My work and I will not be commodified. I will not have all I’ve done become some extracurricular reading you do to get me alone.
If you’ve made it this far, despite all my instructions to do otherwise, I just have to ask why have you read these words specifically? After all, it is just a combination of the same 26 letters, you could have found it anywhere else. Is it because you want to quantify your interest? You want proof of the effort it takes to flatter me? Or is it because, more rarely, you have a genuine interest in my artistic voice? Are you curious about the ramblings of someone who gets frustrated at the fact that she can’t find the right way to phrase a certain idea? These aren’t meant to be rhetorical questions, there is a right answer.
Maybe you’re just an innocent bastard who happened to stumble across my work, and for that, I’m sorry if this passive-aggression seems targeted. They say there is no fuel to the pen like heartbreak, and while that’s true, I’d like to bring forward that there is no fuel to the pen like pent-up frustration and exhaustion. My work is my own. It’s not a trait I picked out to get you to like me. I won’t have it be disrespected and tossed aside absentmindedly.
If that’s all you get from my work, the potential of seeming impressive, then save yourself the time and stop reading. You have better things to do. Leave.
There is no separation between the author and the work. It’s all of me. We don’t exist for you.
It’s not about you.
snaps
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