A friend asked me
how to be a writer.
I wanted to say,
lock yourself in a room,
scream until you have
a poem and no voice.
Open your veins and bleed
until you know that your bones
are pure words and sorrow.
Act as if you slit your own throat
and all you can bleed
are your own regrets
and all of the darkness
you boxed up for inspiration.
Write your mom a letter,
tell her you're leaving
and you won't be back for awhile
Because being a writer is traveling
through all seven layers of Hell
and denying anything is wrong.
Forget loving yourself
when all you have is a pen and paper
fused to your wrist
and Jesus is tapping at your skull
saying turn back now.
Warn the neighbors that if they smell burning
It's just your soul
clawing at the front door trying to get in.
Learn how to be alone.
Learn how to lose everything you have
in order to feel release,
learn how to only feel deceased
from now on.
A friend asked me
how to be a writer.
All I said was
don't

One life
One promise
One relapse
One mistake
One death
Two cold hands
Two empty eyes
Two lost souls
Too little, too late.

If I had an orchard, I’d read beneath trees
If I had virtue, I’d give it where I pleased
If I had a timer, I’d spend my days wisely
If I had more kindness, I’d live less blithely
If I had a garden, I’d sow it with seeds
If I had a forest, I’d write in the breeze
If I had peace, I’d give it freely
If I had patience, I’d make living easy
If I had a brush, I’d paint the world over
If I had drive, I’d fix the ills we’d discover
If I had empathy, I’d nurture with feeling
If I had confidence, I’d shatter the ceiling
If I had a novel, I’d write the right answers
If I had grace, I’d become a dancer

Perhaps I have all of this, and do not realize
Perhaps it’s all within me, lying in disguise.
I know I have gardens and forests and trees
I know I can dance and write with the breeze
So maybe I will
But, perchance I won’t

I’m afraid I will fall.

I don’t have the gall.

Well, as long as I know that when I look inside

I have it all.