i wonder what kind of music plays at an afterlife after party?

​

Write what you know has become such common writing advice 

i think it is all writers know

All they smudge in ink and bruise on paper 

Write what you know they say smiles glaring like the screen of my computer

Blank 

Empty. 

Noticeable because there should be something there but isn't

 

i understand why it comes up in every writing class

In every textbook 

On every blog 

 

i get why they say write what you know

They mean don’t make up the symptoms of a panic attack google it

Because your readers who have been through one will know  

They mean write about something you care about because how else will make other people give a shit?

 

i know what they mean

But i don’t think i’ve ever known anything worth writing down

And i love a good paradox but i don't much like being one 

 

i know the things i was taught in school 

History, and evolution, and shakespeare

i know math

Well i know history and evolution and shakespeare 

 

i know things from outside of school

Like how to be a good person

And that pushing daisies never should have been cancelled

 

i know these things but i dont have any interest in writing a textbook 

 

i think instead, dreaming between the lines of my university readings

And in the space between the ticking of a clock 

 

What would happen if you killed a god?

Are you a monster or a hero? 

Are you just an atheist?

Do you then become a god? 

Are you cursed, gifted, do you have to take over their job? 

 

i think in the pauses for breaths of a professor’s lecture 

And in suspense before my left foot hits the ground 

Of the floor of atlantis

What is the colour of the bricks of the walls 

Are there nooks where gay Atlantien girls kiss ? 

But Most importantly what colour tile is the floor

Does the light of the sun reach down in the depths

To touch the tiles of the palace

And if so what does it reflect?

 

i think while in line for hot chocolate

And when i should be listening to my friends talk 

Of what it would take to make someone kill

Of what it would take to bring someone back

Can necromancy be done with sidewalk chalk

kitchen spices, and the dream of a black cat? 

 

i think in that pause before spotify plays the next song

In the middle of the climax of a netflix movie

About the rhythm of a story in a library 

Buried in ashes and a centimeter out of sync with our dimension

i think a story would sound different in there don't you? 

 

But i don't know 

What happens when you kill a god

The interior design of atlantis 

The intricacies of necromancy 

Or the heartbeat of a story somewhere else 

 

They would tell me that meant that i couldn’t write it 

But i disagree

i know that so i wrote it down

 

i disagree that i should write what i know

Because im am much more interested in what i don’t 

So watch and hear and feel me make your heart explode

When i write about what i dont know