“The chaos comes with you,” simply stated my friend. -The Red Bench excerpt by Jacqueline Cioffa

          

“As an artist do I need constant flux to create? How will I find words in the woods surrounded by trees and rotten cornfields? How will I find anything besides dying, wet leaves?

I cannot escape the volume in my head, the constant churning. The Jesus fucking Christ, turn it down chatter. I have been told to be patient. Wait for the drugs, the quieting veil, and the lavender calm to smooth out the ringing. My mind is full of death and black spots I’m sure, much like a stroke patient after a spell.

   “The chaos comes with you,” simply stated my friend. He was right. I am here, here am I. Sick and tired, tired and bullshit sick.

The blank paper waits and my hands navigate the keys and the thoughts go where they may.”

-excerpt from “The Red Bench” by Jacqueline Cioffa

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“I live for the mess, and it’s all in the middle.” Jacqueline Cioffa

This is my story.

  

Boots and a bag, sherbet sunrise, an extended furlough at the beach, the Cove, side-trip to the bayou and the self-confinement of four walls inside a nowhere home (a whole lot of love, shock and awe, bizarre happens, heartbreak, joy, birth, rebirth, gritty life stuff). Dual realities co-existing in parallel space and time.

Bam we’re back to the boots and full throttle.

The Vast Landscape and Georgia Pine are continuums; sagas and gatekeepers.

One cannot be without the other.

I know precisely how EVERGREEN starts and where the heroine/ narrator ends.

Everything else is a dust storm of blood, tears and sunshine.

Time to kick up the dirt, get chaotic and trust the ride.

I love the messy middle.

I live for the mess, and it’s all in the middle.

“It’s a roll, rock and a break. Let her ride.” – Jacqueline Cioffa