Bryr - Resistance Manifesto

In my writing I try to resist all invitations, all generous wavings in at the front door of some new place I’m approaching. The front door is always welcoming, sure, whether it’s painted black, or green and round, or sports a wreath, or a smear of lamb’s blood. Even if it’s glass, especially if it’s glass, it’s no good. I can’t come in there and expect to be of any use. It’s not because I think it would be neat to clamber in at a window or climb a drainage pipe or squeeze through a dog door, to announce myself with a flourish from some unexpected access. And it’s not because I don’t want the company of the people smiling and stepping off the welcome mat to shake out coats and admire the foyer. That’s fine and everything, but I don’t have the kind of confidence or charisma you need to really glean anything from that kind of approach. I can’t trace an interesting or deviant curl in the filigree with a pointed finger in the air, and hope to snag the attention of whoever’s next to me. They’d shrug, or worse, nod and purse their lips thoughtfully. I have to sneak in, assert and insinuate myself into a dirty corner of the room where I can watch. Leer in a way that makes me feel somewhat badly about myself. If there’s no sense of compulsion or shame in my writing, it never gets off the ground. Because what’s worth writing about is trespass and transgression, an elbow through the window and shards on the carpet, a face in the lower shadows beneath the feebly reflective surface of the window. I have to resist the shoving like-polarities of civility that prevent me from stepping over personal boundaries, my own and others,’ these manners that make my hands contrite and everything I write limp and clammy.