Last Friday night, I was in Toronto. I surrounded myself with every poet I’ve ever known and I admired their talent. I even met an old friend who was just as eccentric as last time we met, but with a hop in her step and a half-smile in her eyes. I guess that love can bring that out in anyone.

After the poetry slam, we end up in a bar celebrating Dave’s birthday. I sat in the corner and watched poet’s chatter to one another over food, shots, and beer. In that dimly lit bar, I was reminded why I love being in Toronto so much. The reason is somewhere in the romance of truly great people finding each other in places with rough edges.

Once the festivities had died down, we left and I began losing my mind. I had thought that the streets were turning sideways and I was walking on the buildings; shaking some neon-green spray paint and tagging the sidewalk with outlines of my hand print.

I hopped over every storefront and peer over the edge of the each roof, looking for my reflection in the horizon. I skipped quarters over the picture windows, hoping to see one get caught by someone who wanted to see me. Maybe we’d dive into a dark theatre and talk about Orson Welles and hear our worst impressions of his voice echo off the empty seats.

Maybe we would have sat on the dark stage with our feet spilling into a single spotlight. We could have reminded each other than praying to God will only bored her. Instead we would have decided to pray to empty electrical sockets, light switches, and to the sound of our knuckles tapping against support columns in empty houses.

When the night’s roulette wheel spun into a red morning, I found myself gambling on my romance with the city. I shook my fist and tossed my expectations to the wind. They bounced off streetcars, subway trains, and landed in the dimples of couples in morning-after glow.

This is just a few of the reasons why I love Toronto.

This week has been a very shaky one for me.

There have been a lot of new life changes that I’ve been struggling with, as well as the ongoing issues that I’ve had since last August. I’ve been thinking about returning to blogging for quite some time now; but everything was finally put into motion when I finished part one of the story I’ve been posting this week.

Anyways, this is me spray-painting across the header of every self-help blog about blogging.

Today, I want to talk about blogging in general.

Those of you who know me from my exploits in blogging last year know that I hate following the crowd. While I do have a good handle on what makes a blog post readable, enticing, and so on and so forth, I hate the idea of conformity. There are a few bloggers online who have taken to the idea of delivering what the readers want to see. I believe that to be completely against the idea of creativity.

I’m also against treating your readers like they’re complete idiots. I don’t believe that people read blogs to reaffirm things they already know. What happened to being daring? I’d rather go against the flow; to be the one who is doing something completely different. Even if I were to be writing for a blog that has a specific topic (such as “How to Share Yourself” or “Blogging Without A Blog“), I’d be writing about doing something standard in a very creative way.

Personal Freedom

I have a very interesting kind of freedom when it comes to blogging.

I have a personal branding (instead of “Beginner Blogger” or “Writer Dad“). I’m able to write about anything I want, whenever I want. This is a lucky break for me; I’m allowed to do whatever I want, whenever I want. Shocking my readers is part of what I love to do (though it has become increasing difficult.

I’m also very well known for posting first draft content constantly, and I suffer for it. Believe me. While it does add a certain element of honesty to my posts, it also is very distracting to see spelling, grammatical, and other errors. I’m just not good enough to be able to write without error. This is definitely due to my lack of education and outright ignorance. I’m working on changing that.

What does it all mean?

What this all comes down to is that I dare you to be original when your blogging. Don’t stop reading self-help blogs about blogging, but don’t be afraid to try something different. I’ve certainly never been afraid of it. Do what makes you happy, write what makes you happy.

Screw anyone who says that you should only deliver what your readers are expecting.

Matthew Dryden

“You looked like you had been in an accident. Verne, doesn’t it look like he was in an accident?”

Lucille and Verne were a lovely older couple who owned a tiny yellow-and-brown house just outside of the town. They called me over to their tiny porch when they saw me stumbling down the road. I’m wasn’t entirely sure why they called me over. Maybe I looked harmless, or maybe I looked like I needed a bit of help.

I sat on the coach with a much needed glass of water. The only thing I could focus on was the huge hole that had formed at the end of my sock. I nodded and smiled as best as I could, but I felt like a complete wreck. I just wanted to be left alone to recover in peace, but that would have been rude.

“All I remember is waking up on the road just a couple of miles down. You’ll have to forgive me, I had bit too much last night.”

Verne glanced up at me from over his paper and chuckled. “No worries kid, we’ve been there. You know, there was this one night where we…”

Lucille, at least that what I think her name was, stopped rocking suddenly. “Verne… Verne!”

My eye had gone out of focus and the glass dropped to the carpet. I remember that they stood over me and were gesturing wildly. “He seems to be getting worse. Do you think he has any family? Go on, Verne, call the doctor.”

When I woke up, I was laying in a small room. The moonlight cast barred window shadows across my torso. I was wearing power-blue hospital pyjamas and leather-straps. I struggled against them until a doctor and two men in suits came into the room.

“Mr. Dryden, good to see you awake again. We were afraid that we had lost you. Tell me, do you know why you’re here?”

I tried to answer him, but my throat made a gurgling sound and I started coughing uncontrollably. The three men waited patiently for me to finish. “Mr. Dryden, there’s no easy way to say this. You tried to kill yourself earlier today.”

The doctor stepped forward and grabbed a mirror that was lying on the table next to my bed. It took me a few moments to recognize my face. My face had been imprinted with the pavement, which I’m sure was from the night before. “Mr. Dryden, do you remember doing this?”

There was a clear line of stitching that lined the entire right side of my neck.

Last night I was a corpse.

I was strung up in the passenger’s seat of a car driven by a man with a death wish. He held his hands at ten and two; one white-knuckled, the other gripping a handgun. Had I been alive, I would have been barely moving. Instead, my body reacted to every bump, twist, and turn that the road had to offer.

His foot pressed down on the pedal far enough to make the streetlight silhouettes stretch over the horizon. He straightened his arms and pushed the speedometer past the three o’clock mark. The wind blew past the shattered windows and curled up on the back my tongue.

“You know, the days you were happy…it felt amazing.”  The man cracked a smile and glanced over at me.  ”You were an infectious person, you know that?  You could have done anything you wanted to.”

He slumped in his seat and let go of the steering wheel. The car slowly drifted onto the gravel. My teeth started chattering, and my fingers numbed from the vibrations. Branches whisked against the side of the car. He gripped my shoulder and yelled into my ear:

“You can’t just let everything come to you! This was not some fucking movie, Matthew! This was your fucking life!”

He unbuckled my seatbelt and I slumped forward in the seat. My forehead cracked against the dashboard with a sickening thud. The man bounced up and down in his seat, laughing manically. He spun the wheel back towards the road. We fish-tailed for a bit before squealing to a stop.

He blew the clasp off his seatbelt and re-cocked the gun. His door slammed behind him and I heard the footsteps on the hood of the car. I imagine that he rubbed the barrel against his temple in quiet contemplation before I heard him yelling at the top of his lungs and jumping up and down.

He opened the door and my body tumbled out of the car. He grabbed my arm and dragged me a few yards. The concrete gripped my face like the sea of a thousand dead souls. I left a trail of blood all the way to the centerline before he knelt down beside me and smiled sideways. “You know, I guess you could say that this was a good try; but I think I got it from here. Thanks.”  He patted me on the cheek before walking off into the brush.

When I woke up the next morning, I was still alone. I stood slowly; still unsure of what exactly had happened the night before. I remembered cigarette smoke and red wine. I remembered that there was a car, but it was nowhere in sight, so I straightened my shirt and starting walking.

As far as I could tell, the closest town was still miles away.

Matthew Dryden