SPRING 2020
WRIT-2300-03
COLBY A PORTFOLIO
1 - CREATIVE NONFICTION Dissociation
2 - POETRY
3 - FICTION
A Twenty-Year-Old Inspired by Emo Rap and the Mainstream Media LOL
The Ratmobile
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LETTER FROM THE AUTHOR
LETTER FROM THE AUTHOR COLBY HAYES
Hello, and welcome to my final portfolio for WRIT-2300 Creative Writing! I wrote the three pieces you will be reading over the course of one semester at St. Edward's University. Included is a creative non-fiction piece, a poem and finally, a fiction piece. Partway through this semester we were sideswiped by the COVID-19 pandemic and had to continue our class online via Zoom. It was a crazy experience which forced us to adapt to the change in the world around us. We adapted by doing peer reviews over Zoom which was not ideal but we made it work! Anyways, I hope you enjoy my work and thank you for taking the time to read what I've worked so hard on! - Colby
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CREATIVE NON-FICTION
DISSOCIATION A LIFESTYLE NOT WORTH LIVING BY COLBY HAYES
Often, you don’t realize how lucky you are to be healthy until the rug has been swept from under your feet. Whether it be a physical injury, disease or a mental illness, you’ll find yourself wishing and hoping that your life will suddenly revert back to its previous state. Your priorities shift as it feels like someone has thrown a wrench in your routine, leaving you confused, hurt and overwhelmed. You must adapt to this newfound lifestyle. Dissociation is my lifestyle. You may be wondering what dissociation is, to which I’ll tell you the definition. It’s the disconnection and lack of continuity between thoughts, memories, surroundings, actions, and identity. When people ask me what it feels like to be dissociated, I tell them it feels like there’s a chord connecting my brain with reality, and someone snipped the chord with a pair of scissors leaving me disoriented and foggy-brained. Like I’ve woken up from a day-long slumber and am still finding my bearings. There are many reasons why one may feel dissociated that include symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, many kinds of dissociative disorders, or even psychosis. In my experience, dissociation exists as a defense mechanism. A response to over-exertion and highly stimulating situations.
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CREATIVE NON-FICTION
It’s the bodies’ way of telling you, “hey, you’ve got a lot going on so let’s dial it back a bit.” Unfortunately, especially in our society, we as Americans feel that we must always be on the go. We must be productive at all times, reaching for the best. However, it’s important to know when it’s okay to rest. The role that dissociation has played in my life is a trigger to tell me when it’s time to take things slow and take a break, and I have to listen to that signal whether I like it or not. This can throw off your plans in an instant. Usually, you learn to deal with this annoyance, but sometimes it takes hold of you and you will crumble. One specific instance comes to mind. It was a dreary Wednesday in November, and I had just finished working at the IT office. I had to go to the Computer Science lab to TA for an intro to Computer Science class. The computer science lab is a grey room with grey computers, grey printers and more grey. It’s not exactly the most comforting place to be. I had been feeling dissociated the whole day, and panic was setting in ever so slowly. Often, the panic sets in when you’re aware of just how dissociated you already are. It’s almost as if knowing you’re dissociated doubles the intensity, similar to the way you get more depressed if you feed those feelings of self-doubt and sadness. I had just learned what lab work the students were going to be doing, and I came to the realization that I had no idea how to do this lab, yet I’m supposed to be their TA. Unfortunate. Thoughts began to race. How do I learn this lab content in time to actually explain it to my students? Am I really cut out for this? As I panicked, reality began to slip away from my mind. It was as if I was witnessing my brain shut down or go on autopilot. Thoughts escaped, and my body moved without direction. I left the room to catch some air and get a drink of water. My eyesight deteriorated as if someone hit fast-forward on a tape representing my age. How was I going to get through this day? Time was moving at a snail’s pace, every second feeling like minutes.
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CREATIVE NON-FICTION
As I walked back into the lab, Mariah, my co-TA stopped me. She told me my face was white as a ghost. I looked and felt manic. Every raised hand by a student represented a conversation I was not willing to face. I leaned on Mariah. I told her I was going to need some assistance to get through the next hour. For whatever reason I was determined to get through this lab, when in reality I should have gone to the school nurse or found some solution to get out of the lab. A student raised their hand… As I walked over to the student, I only hoped that I could help them with their issue, but that’s not so easy when your grip on reality is dissipating. I listened to the student speak, but only gibberish was escaping their mouth. I couldn’t focus on the task at hand as my brain was playing tricks on me. To an outsider, it may appear that someone slipped something into a drink of mine. It was at this moment when I thought I heard Mariah whisper my name. Curious, and hoping she was there to help, I turned around only to be greeted by empty air. Now I was really convinced I was going crazy. Did someone say my name, or am I seriously losing it? The realization that no one had called my name broke me. A sense of foreboding was telling me that I would end my day in the hospital and today would be the day that I officially lose it. In hindsight, I can tell you that I was not going insane that day. I was having a massive panic attack, which was stoking the flames of the dissociation I had been dealing with. Somehow, I did get through that day assisted by some panic medication and hours upon hours of sleep. I have trouble remembering what went on for the rest of that lab, but I do recall telling my students that I wasn’t feeling well. Mariah helped me compose myself and took the bulk of the questions the students had.
To this day, I’ve never experienced such terror as I had felt that day in the Computer Science lab. It’s one thing to find yourself detached from yourself and reality, but it’s another thing to convince yourself that you’re hearing voices. This affliction took control for the better part of four months of my life, and one can only hope that they’ll never revert back to a state of living so intense and controlling.
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CREATIVE NON-FICTION
You may be wondering how I’m doing now, and I can, for the most part, say that I am doing much better. Time heals all wounds, and thankfully the damage done to me is reversible. I still struggle with dissociation; however, it doesn’t come on nearly as strong as it used to. I’ve adapted to the feeling and learned how to not let it get the best of me. It took a lot of work. I spent my entire winter break of 2019 resting, as well as attempting to keep my anxiety down in order to not slip back into the headspace I was in in the Computer Science lab. Keeping your anxiety down for a particular reason is much harder than it sounds. It feels like a constant game. Make the wrong move and you’ll fall back into the pit you just climbed out of. Moving on from here, I’ll be taking steps to improve my mental state so as to not fall back into that pit. Dissociation has taught me to treat myself well. Don’t mess with drugs. Make sure exercise is a constant factor in my life and take consistent mental breaks. When dissociation first came into my life, I didn’t have the mental maturity to adapt and overcome the challenge, but I learned. Looking back from the other side, I can say that this was just one more hurdle in the sprint. There will be many more to come, but I will have learned from past mistakes and can move onwards.
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FINANCE REVIEW
INTERVIEW
CNF REFLECTION I presented this idea of "Dissociation" to the class in the beginning of the semester and received feedback that I should definitely write about this topic. I'm glad I did as well. It's probably one of the most personal things I've written about which was new, different and pretty scary. I knew I wanted to do something personal as I have so many thoughts and sometimes you just need to barf them up onto a page. The main criticism I received on this piece was that it ended too abruptly, and the readers also wanted to know how I am doing now. So, I made it a point to transition at the end of the paper to my life today and inform the reader on how I've conquered this illness. The most challenging aspect of this piece was communicating to the reader what dissociation is and what it feels like. I used several resources in my attempt to communicate this feeling to others and I think it came out well.
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POETRY
A TWENTY-YEAR-OLD INSPIRED BY EMO RAP AND THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA LOL A ROLLERCOASTER RIDE BY COLBY HAYES I’ve been going through memories Like they were movie scenes. Future, present, past. Scroll to the left, scroll to the right. Give me some time And I’ll make things right. But for now, I’m just Taking things day-by-day. Bad tattoos and alcohol, Vibing to the late, great William Eyelash. If she’s the truth, then what the fuck am I?
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POETRY
I bit off more than I could chew, What the fuck is new? I’ll meet you at the morgue. It’s the only place I can rest in peace. Another bridge burnt, But thanks for sticking around, I guess. You wanna catch drip? You can find me in the fucking sauna. Trap beats on holidays Put life back into my eyes. Treat me like a pumpkin, I’m feeling fucking hollow.
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FINANCE REVIEW
INTERVIEW
POETRY REFLECTION My poem is probably the most off-the-wall, odd piece I've ever written. My idea behind it was to essentially think about many one-liners found in the "sad boy" hip hop scene and put my own spin on it. When put to a beat and a rhythm, these one-liners often sound great and I wanted to see how they'd sound just put on paper. I've always found that these lines sound ridiculous when you just read them without the music so that's what I went ahead and did. I had fun with this one. I decided to write this piece straight through without much thought as I wanted to see how ridiculous the end product would be just by using my imagination. I changed a few lines during review, however seeing as this piece was a sort of experiment, I wanted to leave it in its original state. For most, I'm sure they'll find themselves cringing at some of what I've put into this piece, and I hope they do. Either way, I hope you enjoyed reading this poem.
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FICTION
THE RATMOBILE AN EXPERIENCE BY COLBY HAYES
This man can never be seen in person, moving seamlessly from his house to his car and back without detection. You wouldn’t know him if it wasn’t for his car. Front to back his matte grey sedan is decked out to look like a rat. Yes, a rat. At least that’s what I thought at first, but I’ll discuss the differing opinions of what this animal is later. This car can be found deep in the heart of Central Austin in the Hyde Park neighborhood, just a little north of the University of Texas. Here you’ll find a pretty quiet, normal lifestyle consisting of friendly neighbors chatting at Quacks Bakery, and families spending evenings on their porch-front watching their kids play in the yard. Occasionally, you’ll find a family with goats or chickens in their too-tiny yard, but that’s not that odd in the end. Like I said, it’s a pretty normal place, except for that one man with the matte grey ratmobile. I didn’t know who this person was at the time of inception of this idea, and I still know very little about them; my only information coming from a few helpful redditor’s responses I got a couple days before this paper is due. I’m still not sure if I can even trust their comments as the Austin subreddit is a cesspool filled with liars and pranksters. That’s well-known. I was accused of trying to dox this man in an odd Batman related quote saying, “Holy doxing, Ratman! The Wanker is trying to trick people into telling him who we are!” Others were just out of the loop and felt excited by the prospect of a ratmobile. What I’ve deduced from this reddit excursion is that we’re dealing with an elderly man, and apparently this is no ratmobile. It’s a dogmobile. Disappointing, I know.
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FINANCE REVIEW
INTERVIEW
If my sources are true, the idea behind this man’s decision is actually pretty sweet and normalizes him a bit. Apparently, he modeled this vehicle after his dog that always rides up in the front seat with him. However, I don’t believe this takes away from the man’s mysteriousness. I’ve seen the car parked outside his house, and I’ve seen the car driving many times, but I can never get a look at the silhouette sitting inside. I hope one day my urge to confront this man for an interview becomes a reality and I can get some insight into who this man is.
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FINANCE REVIEW
INTERVIEW
FICTION REFLECTION For my fiction piece, "The Ratmobile", I was put to the task to write about someone weird. I came up with the idea of writing about this person in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Austin, TX who drives a car that looks like a rat. I've always wanted to know more about this person and spread word about the ratmobile. I received a great idea from my Professor that I should make a Reddit post and try to find out more about the mysterious ratmobile owner. I ended up doing that, and it turned out to be the most fun part of writing this paper. I got some great responses, both helpful and trolling. I was told to include a bit more information about the Reddit process, so I tried to revise the paper by doing a better job at explaining that process. Overall, this was a great piece to write and I'm proud of how it turned out.
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BIO
AUTHOR'S BIO
Colby Hayes was born on August 10, 1999 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He lived abroad in Hong Kong for part of his childhood until he moved to Seattle, Washington to settle down for his transformative years. He is now a Computer Science major at St. Edward's University. His favorite pastimes are reading fantasy novels, running and spending time with loved ones.