Raw relentless imagination. Writers like to think they are in its pursuit but it’s a coping mechanism—curative, not curated. It comes to us often in a dose, an inhale, a potion, sleep. I feel less afraid of being intoxicated, hence.

The relentless imagination may reveal nightmares—we call them bad trips or PMS—and that’s why we frequently think twisted minds cause creative genius. I know now that bad trips sometimes and PMS always, is a fucking gift. A lens of anger to color some narratives with courage that we cannot afford otherwise.

In a wielded but still raw imagination, we frighten ourselves with narratives of cannibal chainsaw massacres, haunted hiking courses, dead people in varying states of visibility. In my horror movie I pluck petals from a daisy to draw a fortune, except instead of a mathematical attempt to determine if someone loves me or loves me not, I ask the flower if I am going to die or am already dead.

The relentless imagination may, however, reveal desire, instead. Is it an epochal revelation or just the walls collapsing between an individual’s waking and slumbering? Let’s take more pills and find out. Is it a different kind of movie than a horror film? Maybe what film was meant to manifest in the beginning of its age--dream interpretation, psychoanalysis.

I like to think the imagination can be providence. Safety. Safety from relentless reality. Things fall apart, the center cannot hold. I find you in my dreams and then decide dreams are important, but while I am awake I decide to feed my imagination; pretend I have not woken up. The voice of my mother had she not had to suffer a life of circumstances is raw imagination. The voice of my sister had she survived is raw imagination. The sound inside a highway tunnel, of cars made to announce acceleration at the highest amplitude possible. To the driver, it’s enough that you heard.

Casting spells. Breaking them.

If I can be content to stay in my raw imagination, dream states and the full breath of desire, notions rife with meaning, heart pounding so hard it doesn't matter if I am a dime among a dozen, then my heart beat is a mom, and she understands: you don't call enough, you never say how much she means to you with words. We keep each other fed. I may as well be dead is the same as already being dead, says the daisy. It's possible you were the one who needed to play with all of the flowers I have given you, to find out you can do absolutely nothing to stop my imagination.