Here, a world of feeling in me unravels..!

in the sultry suddenness of the word.
i am only hitching different syllables
i have learned together until a handful
of them clank in a fit of chimes
that create some sort of feeling.

the terrible trouble is never being able
to create the feeling. or perhaps,
never even combining the words.
for fear. fear debilitates.
this is me aiming my lasso at the fear
and pulling it in.
i swallow it. i hold its properties against
my stomach lining and call them
what they are: pungent, astringent, sweet.
this is just chemistry.
it is ayurveda. i can purify anything
if you let me touch it long enough.

i’m thinking it’s okay to not make sense,
or to be quite insane. like anne sexton.
like clarice lispector, virginia woolf, a
nd susan sontag.
i’ve learned that my favorite outpour
of words is called stream of consciousness.
i’ve learned that my journals all sound like
they were written in the gully outside
of an asylum where i most probably
just escaped from.

if that’s what this world is, i’m okay with it.

i’ve decided that i want to write.
and it doesn’t matter if it is poems
or pointless thoughts or stories for children
to baffle over.
i just know that i must do it every day.
with all of me. and it hurts. writing is like
tearing off a band-aid.
no, that is not nearly bad enough.
writing is like pressing my finger
into a fresh wound.

and not only when it is sad.
not only when i am writing from heartache
(well, i guess that’s always where i come from),
but to write anything at all. to reach inside
of myself to the place where words live
and pull them out, whether contaminated
with pain or dripping with joy,
there is an unbearable sting to all of it.

that is the sting i am learning to embrace.