Jack Emsden

Biography

I'm an 18 year old poetry and prose writer who has been writing 'seriously' for around a year and a half. My main literary influences are Franz Kafka, Dostoyevsy and T.S Eliot, but I also enjoy more modern writers such as Kate Tempest and J.G Ballard. Writing is always something I have loved doing and my dream is to be able to write professionally in some capacity. I have performed at various open mic nights and poetry competitions around Warwickshire including PGR and Shoot From The Lip in Leamington Spa.

Samples

Jet Lag I’m so tired. And the worst part is, I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t this tired. My legs throb with a dull ache and my feet restlessly tap against the coarse, carpeted floor in a desperate effort to try and keep myself awake. The cool, clinical air of the airport seeps into my skull and whistles inside my head. I find myself, yet again, slumped in one of the uncomfortable, curved, metal chairs that fill this sterilised hell as I wait for a plane that may or may not come. It’s already been delayed two hours. I don’t even know where I’m going. I never know. I can’t decide what I hate most about airports, the boring tourist shopping chains that glow tantalisingly under the fluorescent light, the regular holiday goers skipping with sickening excitement through the pristine mess of the departure lounge, or just the sense of detachment you get from staring through the thick glass that protects you from the startling realism of the outside world. I feel isolated, that’s what I’m getting at. The clumsy congregation of people that flow past emphasise how separate I feel. How I apart I am. Still, it’s my choice, to travel alone. No one else would want to live this way anyhow, flitting from place to place with restless naivety, never stopping to take a look around because they’re scared of what they might see. I do work occasionally. I pick up the odd job if I’m staying somewhere long enough to justify it. It never lasts though. Hong Kong was the longest and even then I only worked in that shop for a month. By that point I was itching to get away, to go somewhere else, and to find something, anything. I remember the initial joy of travelling and how I used to revel in it. It was all so romantic and mythical back when I started rambling around, two maybe three years ago now. You quickly become disillusioned with it all. The freedom I felt was immense and the misted ambiguity of the world seemed to be drawing me in, handing me fulfilment on a shining plate. The problem is that as soon as the lighting changes you can clearly see the cracks. It’s not how they make it out in books and films, travelling. They sell you wanderlust at budget prices that you’d be a fool not to take advantage of. So off you go, suitcase in hand, an unassuming 18 year old grin spread across your youthful face. Then once you’ve signed the contract the veil gets lifted and you realise the romanticised view you held was a lie, because even though we’re made aware of the imperfect truth in literature, it’s written in styles so beguiling and enticing we tend to float tranquilly on the surface of the words rather than fully sinking into them and absorbing their meaning. Of course, I’m being overly cynical. Just because I’m not a teenager anymore doesn’t mean I have to shed all the light-hearted optimism and tender excitement of my youth. I subscribed to the universal dream, hedged my bets and jumped on a plane and I’m not exactly unhappy with where that decision got me. God knows I don’t want to go home. Not yet. It was such a breath of fresh air, that first trip, the winds that whipped up around me as I stood on the deck of the ferry finally relieving me from the feeling of suffocation I’d held since childhood. I remember arriving in Europe for the first time, seeing the never ending horizon splayed out in front of me and thinking that this, this is what life was made for. There was something joyous in the way the rivers of tarmac spread out in every direction, flowing across the countryside as a tribute to Man’s intrinsic need to explore. Despite my lamentations, I still believe in what I did back then: That God isn’t real, though it’s fun to pretend, and that the only thing worth putting your faith in is the rivers and streams that run down into the sea and the vibrant colours that erupt from the earth in a display of nature’s awesome power. I’m 25 now, that means I’m supposed to have things at least a little figured out, right? When you’re a teenager you can afford to be lost, you’re still seen as a wide eyed youth finding your place in a world incomprehensibly big, but by the time you reach my age that protective shell crumbles like castle ruins, leaving only the weak foundations to build upon. Back then I could rely on the encouraging assurances of parents and teachers, urging me to first leave England, saying it would be good for me, that it was what I needed, since they too had subscribed to a fantasy they knew little about. I enjoyed school, though I was never clever in the way you needed to be, and, like now, I was incredibly restless. The monotony of the same routine week in, week out drained me. Looking back now, I do fully appreciate the joy of escaping. I just wish I hadn’t had to escape alone. I’m bored of staring at my own face in hotel bathrooms and watching the lines slowly spread out across it, my lips curling down at the edges and the glint of life slowly leaving my eyes. I feel like I’ve grown inexplicably old without having even slightly grown up, the uncertain scared little boy still there, just disguised well under my hardened, callous skin. The airport seems quieter now, it’s later I guess. Faceless people still wonder past with loud shirts and straw hats, but the stream is thinning. The shiver inducing coldness of the conditioned air bites with fiery intensity, just another example of the way technology has killed the romance of travel. I hate that it’s become a process now, strict and regimented like everything else, executed with painful, lawful precision. I say that like I knew a time when that wasn’t the case, but really I’m simply filled with nostalgia for a past I’ve never experienced. I suppose that’s why it seems so appealing, I can paint it how I like, creating an idyllic world from made-up memories. It’s my jet lag that feeds these thoughts, my dreams thriving off the delirium. My eyes are starting to droop now, my vision blurring as I try to focus on the departures screen. I lull back on the crippling chair, curling up into it. It feels like such a relief to at least momentarily accept the release of sleep. I open my eyes to the gentle warmth of an autumn day and an English hillside, clouds streaked roughly across the sky, breaking apart to allow the sun to shine optimistically on the surrounding landscape. It is beautiful, indescribably so, but somehow fuzzy, blurred. The shadows seem to flow like water and the colour is too subtle, too light, like a painting drawn from corrupted memories. I turn slowly to attempt to take in all I can from the fall and rise of the countryside, desperately inhaling the crisp, clear air as if my lungs have only just learned to expand and contract. I see Keats standing stoically beside me, gazing past the realm I bear witness to, absorbing beauty I cannot begin to comprehend. I spent so many years pouring over words on ancient, yellowed paper, attempting to make myself feel things, that standing now, in silence, peaceful and watchful of the way the beauty of the landscape becomes more defined, the grassy verge sparkling in the hesitant glow of the horizon, I feel a lightness I have never felt before. The tranquility rests in the air and I am at one with it. I hear Keats in my ear, he whispers, not wanting to disturb the peace, “Nothing ever becomes real until it is experienced”. These are the only words uttered and the only ones that need to be, what’s important is the real world around me, no longer held within the confines of a picture frame, but released, to grow and to become. My feet are pushing down hard on the soft earth beneath them, I can almost feel the soil between my toes as it gives way and I fall, eyes closed to the inevitable black. The first thing I hear is the roar of wind through poorly streamlined metal and the desperate splutter of a battered engine still beating with a resilient inconsistency. It stirs me from my disturbed slumber, forcing me to spring upwards; straight backed against the car’s stained upholstery. I can see the highway flying past the window at restless speed, the long expanses of dry, dusty land standing either side of the tarmac, reaching past my vision. Jack Kerouac and Neil Cassidy bounce and shout excitedly in the front seats. With every mile that disappears under the dirty windscreen, they become more alive. They don’t seem to notice me, but continue with wild proclamations, revelling in the thrill of possibility. From what I can gather, the car is heading to Mexico (if it makes it that far). There doesn’t seem to be much idea of what will happen when we make it there, but there is something charming in the restless spirit of pair, lounging easily in the front seats, that takes hold of me and allows me to be at ease with this uncertainty. The limbo that the constant spin of the highway provides, through a seeming suspension of the normal ticking on of time, is refreshing. It gives space to forget, but it is also unsustainable. I listen as Kerouac and Cassidy’s conversation circles round and round, always talking in what ifs with a light air that grows increasingly false, reeking of desperation. I wander what they expect to find in Mexico, the truth? What truth? I admire the way their spirits dance and burn in the moonlight, but there is a naivety in this movement. Or maybe it’s not that. Aside from the spiritual act of the journey, the physical movement manages to fulfil in me the cloying need to take in as much of the world as I can. The destination is unimportant, I think even Kerouac knew that. He and Cassidy talk on in the front, with music blaring loud enough so as to be fully immersive, the staccato jazz rhythms feeling more powerful than the beat of my heart, meaning I can’t help think that, the journey brings joys that outweigh the pain. God knows I’m still tired, but I don’t yearn for a soft bed, I want the thrill of travel injected into my veins to keep me awake. In the end I think I feel the same way about the continuous rush of tarmac under the wheels as I do about God, that it’s fun to pretend. My thoughts become more delirious as the hours wear on. We’ve been driving for seven, maybe eight now. My eyelids droop and I sink into the upholstery. Without warning the taste of polluted air tickles my tongue and the ring of strummed guitar strings plays out next to me. I am sitting on a doorstep in what I presume is New York. It’s hard to tell, but the immense height of the buildings that surround me would certainly suggest so. Bob Dylan is sitting beside me. His voice quivers and shakes as he cries out an ode to the stretched out, numbered streets; the nights spent sleeping in their gutters and the days spent marching down their boulevards. Pain and promise, hope and loss are poured into every clumsy chord and I can’t help think, however cheesy it may be, that the essence of life leak out of the lyrics that trip off his tongue. I want to take part in this life that is being sung about, involve and immerse myself in it, but I’m not sure how. I don’t know how to reach through the story and extract the reality it’s derived from, because it always tends to get lost in the superfluous language. So much so, that it can sometimes feel like things are being done just so they can be made into anecdotes later, and told with fake laughter around a crowded bar. My heart starts beating erratically out of my chest, and my hands are shaking as I hold them above the cold concrete, because I can’t seem to find an answer here, in this vast city, teeming with life that I can’t quite grasp on to. I can’t even say to myself that it’s ok to let the question hang in the air. I need the comforting embrace of purpose. Dylan still plays his songs beside me but the music goes right through me, barely background noise. I can’t breathe. For the first time in a long time I seemed to have stopped floating, gliding, now I am rooted in one place. To watch the world walk by me on its way to work while I stand as part of it is too much. I have grown too used to the reassurance of isolation. I know that true joy can only be experienced in the moment and that all our lives are reduced to stories in the end, but I still want more than this. I want it like a child wants something they can’t have; with an irrational hunger. And then I remember what I had forgotten on that picturesque hillside, what seems like a lifetime ago, that there is an uneasiness to the permeability of the atmosphere. The acoustic melodies play on but they are the only thing holding me in this place. I take another look around, realising again the fuzziness of the buildings, their blurred outlines. This isn’t reality, just another corrupted fantasy, fashioned from subconscious narratives. I feel sick, like the air is poisonous and I am choking on it. I want out of this fabricated existence, living through the ideas of others and floating from one scene to the next to try and recreate the natural majesty of their conception. I can’t live like this. As I think this, the buildings around me-that once stood so tall-begin to crumble, and the sound of Bob’s gravelly voice beside me seems to float further and further away, as if he knows he has been found out. Blackness reveals itself, hidden under the broken landscape. This becomes total, all consuming, and then in a split, heart-retching second, I am back in the airport. The whiteness of its tiled expanse is blinding, but the clerical, sterilised air tastes like honey on the tongue. I have to shake myself slightly to regain a full sense of feeling in my body. I revel in the crisp edges of the airport lounge, its deafening noise -the sound of life going on around me- and the holistic understanding of the world that lies at my feet. Physically I am still confined within the tightly sealed walls of the building, but mentally I feel freer than I have for a long time. I can breathe again. Because, despite what I've said I do still find real joy in traversing these well-travelled lands and exploring every crack, every crevice I can find in this imperfect earth, I just think my expectations were too high. Whatever Kerouac might say, it’s naive to believe every answer lies on the out-stretched motorway, I realise that now. I guess my mind only works in sweeping generalisations. I Imagined travelling as a concept and ignored the error-riddled reality, never able to content myself with it. I just wanted to do something, to feel like I was free from the confines of society, to exert some control over my future, to say fuck the world and all its bullshit limitations. Because, although I've seen beauty beyond imagination and covered more airspace than I care to remember, it’s easy to forget the point of it all when staring down at a shiny, linoleum floor with the scent of Starbucks drifting sickeningly through the air. It’s easy to invest in self-indulgent romanticism, and blame technology for the mechanistic coldness that envelops the initial wonder you feel when hanging above the world in a god-like state, but it’s us who are actually flawed. Not the system we invest in. My mind is teeming with hope, all disappointment and reason pushed to back of my mind to be rediscovered at a later date. For now I am young and I do not need to think, not in such an all-consuming way. Right now, the only thing that’s left to do is live, and to be content with that. Then I hear the announcer’s distorted, metallic voice shouting above me into the vapid atmosphere. It says that my flight has been delayed another hour and to be patient. I swear I just heard the voice tell me, but I still can’t remember where it is I am meant to be going. I sink back into the uncomfortable chair. I have been lying here so long now my back has started to bend and bruise with the strain of holding up my tired bones. I guess living will have to wait another few hours, give me time to cross a few continents, but I am used to waiting. I smile half-heartedly, attempting to calm the erratic goose bumps that prickle my flesh, hoping that, through this meagre physical act, warmth and comfort will poke their heads around the corner. I manage to maintain this smile across my lips as I fall into a dreamless sleep.

All poems are copyright of the originating author. Permission must be obtained before using or performing others' poems.