spleen

notes

Often you sit down with the page and you say: come forth. The poem looks like 2x + y = z. You need augmented matrices to solve it, lemmas, obfuscated points and axioms. You curl up on the floor, pace, do push-ups, brew coffee, sing to yourself, all the while thinking: come on already, come on. Come forth. Where are you?

Often you give up around sunrise and sleep a little, somehow still waking early.

Rarely, you sit with the page and you stare and stare. Not because you're stuck or frustrated, and not because you're bored or uninspired. You do it because you're joyous and afraid. You say to yourself: I have had a wonderful vision. You say to yourself: I can't write this. I'm not that good.

You say to yourself: how is it that I have been so lucky, so blessed to see?