The (Re)Birth of Billie T. Stark

On Billie T. Stark‘s final day as Featured Artist, we asked Billie to look forward to the future, and think about what it might hold. Here’s what he had to say.

Photo by Jessica Ruscello on Unsplash

“What will it be like for me if I can ever find myself in a safe space, if I can fully be myself? It’s hard to answer that. I don’t know that I’ve ever even thought about what it would be like to be truly safe and free. Of course, I despair that I will ever feel that way completely, even if circumstances ever seem to support that feeling. I’ve been a prisoner for so long, I think I am my own jailer. I hold the key to my final liberation. Will I have the courage? I don’t know. But I suppose that, if I reach that state — and even if I don’t, actually — I want to put myself in service, to try to bring joy and comfort as I can. My goal would also be to all but expunge that first-person singular “I” pronoun that “I” — there it is again — use so much from my language, soul and thoughts… to replace it with, I don’t know, “we” or some form thereof.  The goal of the soul or spirit trapped in that “I,” that ego, will be to feel and channel love, to be gentle, to serve, to give, to be a vehicle for creation without using the transitive verb “create.” “I” will perhaps still write but not — as the roots of the word indicate — by carving, by scoring, by marking a surface. “I” will instead let poetry flow through me and onto a canvas or wall with soft brushes and paint, or onto your skin with lipstick kisses…”