What device do you use to
keep your vice in a vice?
Creativity forges the keys to release us from these shackles.
This instrument can also break locks. Every time I try and break free, I try & find moments to capture, the goal is to paint a polaroid of time.
A father, trying to convince grey hairs that his chin is not where they should find refuge yet was told “you may need to get your affairs in order, there’s a chance this delivery room is going to deliver the worst fate twice.”
The disgruntled vet.
The scales of injustice delicately balancing in the wind, an after action report being weighed down by the dust still dancing around old cartridges.
A folded flag being summoned by the heavens waits impatiently to be presented to children.
Every so often, black & white pictures bleed the river of life grey. These moments, these decisions grace the epilogues of the stories we don’t know how to tell yet but are still going to try.
An immigrant man seeing that invisible lines in the sand will not be enough to stop him.
These pesos that a work visa earned turned out to be just enough.
Guelo, your bet is slowly paying off every single time I can finish a poem.
I haven’t been able to finish a lot of poems lately.
That’s why this essay feels more like a notepad for me.
This blank page, a very familiar face, is a little hurt that I haven’t come to exchange pleasantries.
Opening my notebook these days feels more like pulling at a heavy door.
I just wanted to journal, I wasn’t ready for a confession.
I confess:
Looking at a few words over the course of an hour is better than deleting everything I wrote today when I don’t like what I see tomorrow.
All the misunderstood, misguided, & misshapen can find a home here.
Every frustration lives somewhere between the click of a thumb and a black point on a blue line.
This is the only place I feel safe enough to question god with my fists towards the sky.
Why? I’m 0-40 looking for a job that matches my description,
However, I get to work on myself every time this instrument etches in an inscription.
I confess:
The door doesn’t feel as
heavy anymore because every time I have the strength to pick up a pen, I’m getting a little stronger.
When the mistress named “writer’s block” comes to harvest I will be too busy writing away any troubles that my heart can’t seem to carry.
If the only thing I can put on a blank page is a tear, I’ve said everything I need to say.
Let me say this:
Art is currently saving my life.
It’s the sentry denying entry to the malicious,
A bad decision, a miscalculation are things to mourn but guess what?
When nothing else makes sense,
We can knock at the chambers of our personal confessionals,
Speak to whatever God will listen, & see if we can leave our burdens at their feet again.
Writing has helped me navigate the dark.
Writing itself is a light that we all harbor within ourselves.
It is the illumination
it is the spotlight
It is the keepsake from the sun
because a bad couple of weeks does not mean I’ve had a bad life.
Rick Writes is a 1st generation Mexican American who is Influenced from his life spanning the east coast.
An Air Force Veteran of 11 years, he has certifications in facilitation, instruction, efficiency & is a certified assistant in program management.
He hopes the scriptures he paints can leave a good image for his son.
Rick has performed in Florida, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Washington, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah & South Korea.
A regional finalist both as an individual and on a team, Rick hopes that his mantra of “Universally Personally” will be a staple within the poetry community for years to come.
Artwork (As seen on homepage card for this post): Coalescence 2, Richard Wilder, 2024. Mixed Media, 27″ x 27″
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Art Saves Lives by Community Building Art Works is a series of essays where contemporary authors, poets, and artists reflect on the sacred act of art making and allow readers to feel seen and safe to reach further inside of themselves in their own art making practice. To receive these essays in your email before they are available to the wider public, sign up for our newsletter, here.