This writing thing used to be my own, something no one could take from me. An open book of possibilities is what I used to call it. Now I’m sick, tired, and dog-hungry. I don’t even know what writing means to me anymore. Do I do it for myself or do I do it for show? Endless questions keep me guessing. I am frustrated. I don’t want to write for anyone, ever again. Yet here I lie. I don’t want to follow form and rules. I don’t care about narrative, or contests, or anything literary. I am fed up; I am just another number.
This writing thing used to be my own, something no one could take from me. Then I found out that there are millions, possibly billions, of other self-professed writers with the same ideations. I am not unique, I am unoriginal. Worse still, there are teeming masses of even less original people touting more success than I’ve ever hoped to sniff. What a drag, what a bore. What a scam.
Writing is like watching my belly: it grows with each donut consumed before bedtime, a box of them littering crumbs on my bedsheets, but I never notice how distended its become until 6 months later when I look 9 months pregnant. I am a man, we don’t get pregnant. Science aims to change all that. I’m disgusted. Humanity has thumbed their nose at God long enough. Surely there will be a comeuppance, and it can’t be far away. The creation mocks its Creator, thinking this is all just a game.
“Maybe we’re actually living in a computer simulation,” they say. I laugh and smirk, shaking my head as I get back to weeding their lawns. Oh, the rich and powerful shall fall, one way or another. No one holds onto wealth indefinitely. No one escapes the touch of death. I try to tell my wealthier cohorts that they can’t take any of this with them to the other side, but that never seems to work. It would seem that dollar bills have been stuffed into their ear canals, replacing what once used to be wax.
I am fed up with the notion that poetry can be either good or bad. Especially when there is so much crapy poetry flooding the literary streets, by virtue of privilege alone. Kleptocracy is the only reason you were published, Susan. Don’t stand at my local library, Martha, lecturing The Oppressed on what it means to feel pain. You don’t know pain, Janet.
It hurts to know that most literary agents are young white women who’re convinced they have an expansive world-view. “I read a lot of books because it broadens my horizons.” No, Sarah, you’ve been reading the same re-hash since you were a tween. Nothing has changed in your perspective just as nothing has changed in the world since colonialism: whiteness controls language and suppresses colored thought. The people who wish to be known as white continue to hold down thoughts of color just as they do bodies of color. But you don’t hear me, though.
I have a friend who likes to keep her head under the covers. I told her that reality is a black word, and that she can’t ignore it. “Watch me try,” she said. I wonder what about myself I see reflected in her. I sent her a job listing for some neo-colonialistic research position in Kenya. She replied, “Hard pass. My chief aim in life is minding my own business and this job would not allow me to do that.” So much of that speaks to my inner apathy.
Want to know a secret? I’m still an addict, though I’ve gotten better at masking the symptoms. I still binge, though my physical health no longer takes a toll. I still cry, though you wouldn’t know it by the smile on my face. I’m still here, somehow, by the grace of God, and I’m still positive, even when I’m negative.
And I wrote this a long time ago, but I’m updating it now and seeing that the ways of thinking which sufficed me all these years no longer is enough. Onwards, dear brother, and upwards.