when i was younger, i thought each piece i wrote carved out a bit of my soul; certainly it feels as if this is true during the times i have to wrench the words out, each by each. now, through long experience and painful avoidance, i have learned that it is the not-writing which diminishes me. painful as writing can be, holding the words back is no palliative. remaining mute, silencing the words, siphons off more of my essence than writing them down ever could. during a time of no writing (one of many in which i decided that the cost was no longer worth the reward) i discovered that there is no time of no writing, only a time of not permanently recording the words. every moment of the day is a narrative, a poem, an essay that repeats itself in my head. even when i was quite mad, the words refused to stop.
i have feigned deafness before, pretended not to hear their siren song, because then i do not have to face my own inadequacy and frustration. inadequacy because i am an imperfect instrument, frustration because i never cease to expect the raw material that spills forth to arrive in finished state. the thoughts never come forth fully formed, and letting them go unwritten keeps me from confronting my imperfections. thoughts demand no editing.
why am i afraid to read the words i have told this machine to set down? for years, i refused to read what i had written, simply writing it out in longhand once, copying it over, and leaving it to those who wanted to concern themselves with it. i orphaned my work, disclaiming all responsibility for however it decided to take shape. i was not the creator, but the channel. sometimes i still feel as though i am a channel, standing in the back of my head watching my fingers fly on this keyboard. i see the poetry of typing and detach myself from the poetry of prose that almost sings itself out in its need to be free of my head and breathing alone. paradoxically, these movements prove i am creator, not mere tool. the words bump up against my brain in their urgency to escape from their salty gray womb. electrical impulses in my head become electrical impulses in my hands become electrical impulses in my computer, miraculously gaining life in the process.
the decision to share what i have made is almost as difficult as the making. these words dance on my page, do my bidding; but will they obey you? if they choose not to, does that enhance or diminish my worth as a writer? how do i know that i have made the translation from idea to essay? it is a frightening thing, to expose my children before i am sure they have all their fingers and toes. i stand by, fidget as you read, await breathlessly your approval. the world has decreed that my words are worthless unless another finds meaning there, and i do not question this obscenity. instead, i wait, meek and mild, for you to decide: thumbs up or down? am i to be thrown into the ring this time, or may i retreat and write and return to be judged another day?
what happens to the things i kill? this is not what i first or even second wrote. the setting down of these words is not the end, but only the beginning. a sculptor buys his clay; mine must come from my head and be set down, left to dream, and then, after a time of contemplation, be shaped and formed. the words are slapped and pinched and shaped and made to fall into line, one after another, in an eternal progression. the extra bits disappear, to where i do not know. i cannot scrape them up and stick them back on. the sculptor, dissatisfied, may crush his clay and begin again; i must erase the page and make new raw material. the art of writing is rewriting, and rewriting and rewriting until i am sick to death of my words and myself. the dough rises, i punch it down, shape it, leave it to rise again so i can punch it down again. where does this insanity stop? no written work is ever finished.
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sine | deb
just look at whitman.
(yes, dammit, i know it's
fucking melodramatic. that's what your n key is for)