You accept this.

The tangent force fields of expressive lights, mock the hipsters at dawn who wear tortoise rimmed spectacles and smoke rough skinny roll ups. Ravishing darlings giggle aggressively at unsightly academics, who struggle with daunting books spiked with psychoanalytical lingo. Melodramatic metaphors hang from the moon, blinding in its effortless demeanour to generate confusion and grace. You sit in disproportionate bars sipping artificial cocktails constructed with lies and fabrications while the dreamers fidget in their sleep. Communication between sexes is limited and vague, except for the disinterested enquiry for a swift alleyway fuck. The stature of man is regrettably superior; the opportunities they receive are more illustrious and bold. Yet you accept this and struggle to insert impact in the arts, to show your talent and expertise while knocking on the door to mannequins in suits. You shy away from the whistles that escape the mouth of cowardly wolves, head so low your nose scrapes the tarmac and pebbles catch in your lashes. Your eyes they glow with malevolence as you watch Prozac girls tumble out of casinos at dawn; their purses burst with copper coins and blood tipped notes. The melancholy beat of a generation in turmoil, wherefore art thou poets? Where are you, young poets? Dissolved at sundown the writers depart, leaving nothing but muddled stanzas and disorganised prose. Fabulous monologues slide off tongues of self-obsessed romantics who steal love potions from alchemists. Repetitive chants of gobbledegook idioms respond to involuntary hallucinations and pathological amnesiac conditions. Crying out in frustration at blocks in the mind while terminating cesspit desires in discovery of fallen hope. Kafka’s sense of identity has no meaning without interaction, a schizoid dilemma of pleading for love juxtaposed with fear of honest intimacy. No recollection of former dreams, the imagination is absent. An unproductive society destroys wild brain cells with rigid rules. The eyeballs are electric and pin you down against your will; vine leaves press against your skin leaving poisonous acidic boils and broken heart strings. Striving for affirmation the insistent cockroach crawls downtown, past bohemian coffee shops and avant-garde record stores. The mecca is approachable only at dusk when the illusionists come out to play and the rats walk the twilight streets.

Lizz Brady is an installation artist, painter, and writer currently living in the UK. You can see more of her art and find out more about her at her website (opens in a new window).