O phone
You aren’t much of a muse.
You correct my spelling
To something I neither expect
Nor want.
You are too helpful
With your auto capitalization
And your flat, buttonless keyboard.
Yet I continue to use you
As my primary writing tool
Because it is so convenient
To lay on my back in bed
And hold you up
When I write.
That is
Until I drop you
On my face.
Just an exercise. Trying to get bigger, more interesting words back into my active vocabulary.
Does this sound stodgy to you, or is it nice?
The cat looks intently at the edge of the table. Her bronze eyes bespeak her intentions: she would try her reign from this elevated place. Coiling springlike energy down into her haunches, an instant of quiet tension and calculation. Then, in one powerful movement, she launches herself three feet into the air, hooks her paws on the edge and forwards herself even higher, a leap of such precision and delicacy that might put any prima donna to shame. By the time gravity catches up with her, it is too late; she has already gained purchase of her goal with all four paws. A wondrous maneuver, brilliantly executed.
Unfortunately, she cannot stay.
You scoop one open hand under her belly, lift her scant weight with hardly an effort, and transport her to an area which is more convenient for you. The instant you pick weight up off of her legs, they become silken fluid. She droops, either extreme of her small form dangling, limp as wet seaweed, from your unyielding support. Her apparent power has been shattered. She knows the futility of struggling in this gargantuan grip. Instinct and training directs her to wait until she is liberated, as struggle will only injure. The cat has been effectively paused.
Once you arrive at an adequately removed location, you deposit her back on her dainty feet with a inconsequential drop of a few inches. She absorbs the concussion with all the grace of a liquid creature.
Her coat is ruffled from your handling of her, and from her discontent. The tip of her tail indignantly flicks. This goddess, a miniature incarnation of noble wilderness, in whose eyes still blaze the sands of ancient Egypt, has had her will defied.
Disoriented, she sniffs, acquainting herself with the alternative locale, and selects for herself a new throne. She will not spare a glance in your direction.
Never good enough
Never good enough
Try a little harder
Punish
Self castigate
Mortify the flesh
Is this good yet?
Is this?
Am I still
A disappointment?
I wrote all evening
And nothing good happened.
The reverse Midas touch, I wrote.
Everything I do turns to shit.
But it wasn’t good enough either.
When will I be good enough.
When will I be satisfied.
What am I looking for?
When I write, I write what I felt that day.
So I didn’t feel anything today?
No. I felt inadequacy. That was sharp.
I need to write what is wrong
I need to write for me
I need to write for therapy
I need less judge.
I read a really bad story today by another writer.
Relatively, I’m an incredible talent.
I read a really good story today by another writer.
Relatively, I’m a half-wit.
What can I do
Why do I try so hard
Why do I try
Why do I care
Why can’t I just be happy
Writing stories and poems should be fun.
When I was a kid
Even then
I was a harsh critic.
I must have been eight
I remember judging my little kid poetry
For rhyming wife with wife. What a cop out, I thought.
I remember being displeased by my corny poem conclusion:
“What is the way to be happy?
There is only one thing
And that is, to sing!
Oh, what a good way to be happy!”
It felt wrong. Of course that wasn’t the best way to be happy.
My parents thought it was adorable
But I knew better.
I always know better.
I never trust praise.
I know my flaws.
They burn my eyes
They scald my soul
They cannot be extricated
They cannot be exorcised
They can only be
Embraced
Every day.
Practice will patch the holes
Acceptance will allow for flexibility
Some days are hard
Some days are easy.
I will never meet my own expectations
So I must not allow expectations.
Oh, what a good way to be happy!
I never realized how precious I was being about my writing
Until I started posting it.
I find myself thinking stupid stuff:
“If I post this, I can’t get it published.”
As if that’s something I’m likely to do
“If I post this, I can never use this idea again.”
Dear god, ideas are cheap
And recyclable.
“They won’t like this one.”
They’re free to react as they please
I’ll survive it.
They’re just excuses to be fearful.
Hiding your writing is no fun
Just like hiding your drawings is no fun.
And it should be fun
If it’s not fun
Then why the hell are you doing it?
Lately I’ve been working on finding the fun
In my art, in my writings
If I’m not having fun, I’m blocked.
The blog has also taught me that if I am having fun
I get better without even realizing it.
But I love saddling my fun carefree creations
With heavy responsibility
Like a disappointed parent
I crush them before they’re even formed
With the things that I hope they will do for me.
The other day Don asked me, “Have you ever noticed this about language, everything comes in threes?” He was talking about jokes, fables, lists in speech (e.g. life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness).
I thought about it and said that maybe it’s a common speech device because we need three items to be able to recognize a pattern.
And then I thought about this concept again. I’m always seeing it lately. I wrote it right after I wrote the cycles poem because I didn’t feel like I’d adequately conveyed the concept, and they tie together. One bell curve is half of a circle… if you blur your eyes when you plot it out.
Anyway, because it’s always in my brain, here it is:
Writers are taught to see
The bell curve of a plot.
Rising action, climax, falling action.
Sex has a climax. It fits the bell curve perfectly.
The life of a mayfly.
Birth, hours of development, a climax of mating, death.
Every little segment of time
No matter how small
Has a climax.
Inhale, hold, exhale.
Cut it smaller.
Just inhale.
The breath climaxes near the end, when you can’t take in any more and must stop.
A hummingbird beats its wings.
Lift, hold, fall.
The hummingbird darts to the next flower.
He arrives, partakes, departs.
The hummingbird takes a meal.
He hungers, sips nectar, stops when he is full.
The hummingbird is caught by a predator.
Fear, struggle, acceptance.
We live in bell curves.
They all link together
To form the line of our lives:
A golden spiral.
One long corkscrew from the past to the future.
A double helix of plot curves
A never ending cycle
Of birth, death, birth, death.
