A writer eventually learns to stop asking
"what did you think?"
and realizes soon after
that all worthwhile feedback
will come forward single-handedly.
In fact a writer doesn't call him or her self
a writer at all.
But fancy themselves as such.
To write true, and truly write,
you must forget moral obligations,
simplicity,
complacency,
normality…
or that life is so unadorned and predictable
or disordered and strange.
To lose the facility
for sports stats or celebrity status.
To be so self-absorbed that no one notices you
until you raise your finger to order another drink.
To live in your little house or apartment
surrounded by the same, still, unwavering environment
in seclusion.
Everything in hand,
is a stage prop or party favor.
It's a forlorn domain of abandonment,
a succession of recyclables,
a storm of half-starved ideas in
a sea of paper balls that won't quite flush.
There is no true passion--
only blind obstinacy for the written word,
no gift
no natural ability
no refined practice.
Only dreaming every night
to be an ordinary somebody
and waking every morning
an aboriginal nobody.
To be a writer:
merely words.
Words that can either vividly project one's self
into any image
or words that you can boost someone's self sense of worth
or reduce them to a quailing crybaby.
To focus not on the story
and reap the benefits of its rewarding lore,
but on how the story may be told.
And retold.
A writer holds onto everything,
wandering aimlessly in a circle
with no where to set anything down.
The little things,
The words uttered from people's mouths.
The less than ordinary experiences.
No place..
to set them down.
Like a mailman in a snow globe
To spend your life spiritually secluded,
dormant to the world,
estranged from its people.
To live in anticipation of one's self,
to shatter the sphere of glass that surrounds,
to take a step into a mirror wide bubble of oblivion
and deliver.
To stare at a decade of your life
setting on a messy desk..
unheard of
unfelt.
And as one
who interprets himself as a writer,
no matter how emotionally perilous,
whether confined, crushed or
collecting dust in a display cabinet,
I know my place in this world.
And although I still ask sometimes
'What did you think?'
…I know where the mail ends up…
MBE 09-07-07
|