what to write (poetry)
Hemingway told me to write about what hurts
So suicide and death are pretty prevalent in my work
It twists and turns itself into my every written word
I’m a mocking bird, singing the same old song, it’s so absurd
But if I write, then I rewrite for the voice that went unheard
And I reword the same old story to the ending I prefer
Where death was just some distant doom that hadn’t yet occurred
And I could still hold onto her
King told me to write throughout the night
And wait for all the things it brings to fill me full of fright
But no monster or fanged demon ever feels quite right
Because I invite the absence of the light
In the darkness, perhaps she hovers there, just out of sight
Her ghostly figure fading as the moon brightens white
And as I chase her child’s hand, feeling mine ignite
She’s gone - and so’s tonight
Asimov told me to write to change the past
That every breath you took would eventually be your last
And if the blank page were God, what would you ask?
Seventy thousand words later, you will have surpassed
The shadows that have haunted you from tragedies amassed!
Praise the written word for it has the power to outlast
This fickle feeble flesh will give way, stories everlast
Christ was merely craft
If you ask me, write about your dreams
The changes that you’d make in a world that makes you scream
The cruelty and hypocrisy and welcome rise of the machines!
If you could look into the mirror and be what you believe
A sister who didn’t fail, merely fantasies
But aren’t our stories that? Rewritten tragedy?
Casually adjusting the casualties of our random reality? Bringing rhyme and reason to rhapsody? Dysfunctional family and rejecting finality and fucking profanity?
If you ask me what to write, just don’t ask me why
Because I’ve been writing as an excuse not to die