Write what’s real About what hurts, what inspires you The things you don’t tell anyone late at night When the tears threaten to ruin the cracks in your laptop keyboard That too expensive Mac with no water damage coverage Write about the one time you thought you wanted to be a writer And the words never came. Write about when you wanted to be a musician You listened to Charles Mingus and went to class Cajoled your way through music ensembles and played too many instruments Spreading yourself thin until you came to an audition And instead of trying it you left. Write about those times you fell in love Over and over With a boy who claimed he wanted you and women But never actually did anything but love himself and occasionally you When the mood struck Your heart in pieces as you realize you can’t even be upset Because it’s not like you were the problem it was just biology and fucked up sentimentality So you continued to gash open your heart With the same pair of brown eyes. Just write about it, you say. Write until the words come out, the ones you hate The ones admitting you hate yourself sometimes and the way you can lie To yourself and to everyone else about everything There are words you hide in a box under the bed You’ve convinced yourself no one reads them so there they wait It’s your entrance essay into the realm of the artist Everything you do before it is an empty shell revolving around an empty space Filled with all the things you’re not saying. Words are hard, you say. Write them anyway.
a.i.w. (A poem from when the make up blurred across my face and the scent of your clothes had faded from my skin.)
