Words from a Second-hand Heart

By J.L. Shenstone

Working full time was never an appealing option for me. I went to university for five years to study an Arts Degree. Because I dropped my subjects on a whim and was less focused every year, I never actually finished. Right now I am a semester away from obtaining my degree with no real desire to ever go back. I used to spend time at the tavern with students who assumed the world was theirs having pointless conversations we would forget by the next day. The rest of my time was spent falling in and out of love with every intelligent girl I came across (the ones with bob cuts, red lipstick, black boots, who read Gertrude Stein and Jeanette Winterson, who lived alone, who drank in the day, who bought records instead of C.Ds, who had black bed sheets with white cum stains and rooms that smelled of incense and adventure). I didn’t believe in the power of a degree. Going to university was like practicing for a life that doesn’t exist. So I quit and decided to become a writer instead.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.L. Shenstone
• Release date: Dec 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311860125

J.L. Shenstone

J.L. Shenstone writes poetry, short fiction, novels and scripts.

Book preview

Words from a Second-hand Heart

J.L. Shenstone

Copyright 2014 J.L. Shenstone

Published by J.L. Shenstone at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Contents

Prologue

come

let it go

what we say

about a girl

proposal

incest

sleepwalk

four months

two words

love

not needed

your mind

string

your body

Bukowski

smoke drunk driven

the baby who knew too little

the daily maintenance of life

the exit

novelists

poetry night

what it's like to want to write when all they want is for you to sing

life/death

slow leak

happiness

it rained, I forget the rest

life's little luxuries

stranger

call waiting

About the author

Prologue

I chose this life. When I'm broke, which is often, I have to remind myself of this. When I’m alone with a blank page that seems only to mock me, I have to remind myself of this.

Even though I have chosen a life that is not commonplace, that is not well funded, or even well liked, I could not think of another life to live. Being an artist is the only thing that has ever made sense to me. Life has been distilled down to this: as long as I can afford to pay the rent, to eat and to feed my dog, who cares about the rest? All that is left is being able to create and to enjoy what others create.

When I watch a film that surprises me or is done in a unique way, when I read a sentence that stands out above all the other sentences on that page, when I look at a painting and feel as if I was peering through a window into a scene that is occurring now and not a hundred years ago—it’s like falling in love.

When I turn forty and I'm still an unpaid writer, still trying to reach an audience that at times seems not to exist, I don’t know how I will feel. I will probably be proud of myself. I try not to live with this fear because it doesn’t matter. I will always write. My mind will never stop its incessant talk, its nightly ramblings. It will always stop me to glance at a stranger, to think how I might describe them. It will stop me like it did the day the sun fell on my girlfriend’s face and I saw she had the smallest white hairs at the bottom of her earlobe and