Sunday morning coming down.

All of my demons walk into a bar.  ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ There is something in a Sunday That makes a body feel alone ​ --------------------------------------------------------------- PSA: If you're in need of art, I released a new spoken-word poem called [Cock Fight](=). If you're in need of advertising, my agency [Honey Copy](=) produced two new concept ads for [Apple]( and [Tonester.](=) --------------------------------------------------------------- I have demons. One looks like a cross between my college basketball coach and Captain America's archnemesis, Red Skull. Years steadily consuming copious amounts of bourbon has left his skin so red you'd lose him on Mars. He's constantly berating me. Sometimes he screams so close to my face, I can smell the mash on his breath and feel the spittle land on the surface of my eyes. I want to blink but I won't as not to give him the satisfaction of seeing me scared. He tells me I am a failure, that I will always be a failure. One favors Andy Warhol. He wears a black beret that contrasts against his bleached skin like a dot on a domino. His fingers and hands and wrists are covered in splotches of paint that share the same palette as his latest masterpiece. He tells me I'm an imposter for calling myself an artist, a writer and a poet. One possesses a striking resemblance to Angelina Jolie before she got that dragon tattoo on her left arm removed. She's got hair like a combed waterfall. It's the same chocolate brown they painted all those vintage Mercedes back in the 70s and 80s. She spreads her legs like Joséphine in Napoleon and urges me to look down. She tells me I am nothing without the constant validation of women. One smokes a cigar the size of a Basilic cannon. He's clad in more gold than the dead kings of Persia. He's got gold in his teeth, gold hanging around his neck and gold wrapped around every finger of his hand. He smokes his big, fat Cuban cigar and tells me I am only worth the money I earn. One is the spitting image of Johnny Fontane in The Godfather. He's as smooth as a criminal. He walks through the crowd with the nonchalance of a shark knifing through water. Behind closed doors, he crumbles at the possibility of losing favor from the masses. He is a slave to public opinion. He points to the metrics. He constantly points to the metrics. He tells me nobody is reading, nobody is listening. One is me but an older version of me. He's as bald as a bat, his beard has gone all but gray and his black tattoos have faded to ash with the passing of time. His wife is beside him. They seem to be at peace as they watch their kids––who have grown old––play with kids of their own in the yard. He glances up from the scene every now and again, giving me a grave look, concerned I'm sacrificing this for my ambitions. He opens up his arms, as if introducing a scene. On Sundays, these demons and so many others slither out from the dark nooks and crannies in my mind and gather at a bar that looks a hell of a lot like a haunt called Sportsmans I used to frequent in Southern Indiana. These demons will all get vehemently drunk and shout their one-liners over the crowded room, over the heads of deer hanging on the walls, over the blaring music pouring out of the speakers. They do lines of coke in the back, on the squatty porcelain sink that's so close to the urinal they can feel the piss from their neighbor splatter on their cheeks as they mop up the snow with their nostrils. As the night marches on, they get increasingly more aggressive. Sometimes I can catch their gathering early and quickly get things under control. I'll turn on the lights, kill the Jukebox, punt their drinks off the bartop and tell them it's time to go home. Other times, I catch the party when it's too far gone and I'm forced to ride it out; my mind a cataclysmic echo chamber of fears, insecurities and short-comings. Your work is shit. Your poetry is shit. You are shit. Who do you think you're fooling? Your books have been flops. Your albums have been flops. Everything you do is a flop. Yet, you're still pouring money into your art? Why do you keep pouring money into your art? You are gonna go broke. Wait and see, you are gonna go broke. Broke and lonely. Why do you feel so lonely? You've got family and friends, why do you feel so lonely? Because you're selfish. You're a selfish brother. You're a selfish friend. You're a selfish person. And what are you selfish for? Words that go unread? Poems that go unheard? Don't let anyone get too close. They'll stop loving you if you let 'em get to close. In fact, why don't you just walk away? Kris Kristofferson wrote a song once called Sunday Morning Coming Down that encapsulated this feeling perfectly... On a Sunday mornin' sidewalk I'm wishin', Lord, that I was stoned 'cause there's somethin' in a Sunday that makes a body feel alone and there's nothin' short a' dyin' that's half as lonesome as the sound of the sleepin' city sidewalk and Sunday mornin' comin' down This past Sunday was one such Sunday for me. I woke up and everything hurt. I was surrounded by family but everything hurt. I tried to meditate but everything hurt. I tried to pray but everything hurt. I tried to write but everything hurt. I tried to drink but everything hurt. I tried to laugh but everything hurt. I tried to pretend that nothing hurt but everything hurt. Towards the end of the day, just before sundown, I pulled on my running shoes, determined to wrestle shut the gates of hell. It was ninety-five degrees and it felt as if I was laboring inside a furnace. I ran four miles eventually winding up at the Southern most part of Miami Beach where I fell into the ocean like a corpse. I closed my eyes as the heat from my body escaped into the still, cold, baptismal waters. As I floated there, watching thousands and thousands of souls exist around me, I thought it bizarre how lonely one can feel on a planet filed with billions of people. At this thought, I held my breath and sunk below the surface, letting the cool, slippery wet envelope my neck and beard and face and head. Beneath the water, I thought about how Muhammad Ali would sit in the ocean for hours between bouts because he believed the Ocean encouraged his body to mend itself. I went weightless at this thought. I spread out my arms and let my heels drag gently against the floor with the slow, lazy lopping of the waves. When I felt the party had died down some and the demons had worn themselves out, I stepped out of the ocean and onto the sand. I made my way up to the sidewalk where I kneeled, washed my feet in the spigot, pulled on my socks, laced up my running shoes and ran home. Later in the night, I found out Kris Kristofferson had died. I never knew the man but I knew the feeling he so often described in his art: the inexplicable sadness and loneliness. Like so many writers, artists and poets, Kristofferson informed so much of my writing and my poetry. I remember when I was cutting my first album [Kimono](=), I told my producers, "You know the opening of The Pilgrim: Chapter 33? I want to create something that gives someone that feeling." When Kristofferson sung you a song, you believed him. You believed his suffering and somehow this made you feel less alone in your own. That's all any artist could ever hope for. To create something that helps a stranger get through a Sunday. By [Cole Schafer](​ --------------------------------------------------------------- It's time to break through Creative block, self-limiting beliefs and the wonders of momentum ​[Meet Cute](=) is a creative writing course, sure. But, it also functions as a laxative for creative block. It encourages you to develope a daily writing practice that not only hones your creative writing skills but gets you unstuck. If you're feeling blocked creatively––be it in writing or some other form or medium––you should create. This is the only remedy. By committing to a little bit of movement each day, you will eventually build up enough momentum to break through whatever self-limiting beliefs are imprisoning you. [ENROLL IN MEET CUTE](=) --------------------------------------------------------------- [[linkedin]​]() ​ [Update your email preferences]( or unsubscribe [here](​ © 2024 The Process 113 Cherry St #92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2205