"If everything
you thought you knew
makes your life unbearable
would you change?"*

A cool spring morning,
trees explode
with life and color.

I sit and meditate.

Everything I have
ever been,
everyone I have
ever known,
has brought me
to this exact
perfect moment.

Sitting with
this new life,
with my new life,
among these new leaves
and blossoms,
I know I will change
and remain the same.

Sure of nothing
and everything.

Sitting exactly
in this right place,
sitting exactly

where I am.

  ~mce

i. Allow yourself to be clichéd. Forgive yourself the comparison to phenomena like stars, tsunamis, volcanoes, and the end of the world.  There is no shame in depicting the galaxies you see in your irises or the seas crashing in your lungs. Don’t for a minute diminish your words because you’re afraid of seeming larger, lovelier, or grander than you really are. Keep writing huge. Keep writing splendorous.

ii. Destroy the anxiety gap between you and your work. Sit down and write whatever’s filling you in that moment. When stupidity comes, embrace it. When unoriginality comes, offers it your deepest welcome. When panic comes, give it a wink and keep dragging your pen across the page. There is no wrong, no right. There is only Something. Do not label the Something in such stark, dull terms as good or bad. If you must label it, label it burning, label it victorious, scarlet, howling, fresh, moving, disastrous, gleaming, but never reduce it to success or non-success. Who are you to determine these things? How can you take what streams out of you and cram it into a superficially constructed box? Would you degrade any other kind of natural release? Would you relegate blood flow or shouting or tears to a simple one-word title? This is your time to glow in full vulnerability, to fall head over heels for every blundering, beautiful thought within you, so build a bridge between you and the paper that will be strong enough to bear your weight. Then cross it.

iii. Know who you are writing for. It should be yourself, not the one who holds your heart or the fire-faced figure in the park at dusk or people who make your soul twist. Write for brave, bruised you; wondering, powerful you. Always you.

iv. Rise above the need to match your creation to a preordained image in your mind. The two will never be the same and this is fine. Accept whatever you produce with tender detachment, then move forward. Remember that every literary icon has felt the same pounding dissatisfaction, and walked about tugging at their hair, frustrated and abashed. Remember they are no closer to divinity than you. Ultimately, we are all just shells through which a greater ocean sings, so let yours wail its melody as it likes.

v. Write without the tight egoic fist; write without a blueprint; write without fear. Write like it is your first day on earth and you are stunned with awe. Write like the caterpillar bursting from its cocoon, transformed, breathless. Write like that.

Villanelle For Our Time*

From bitter searching of the heart,
Quickened with passion and with pain
We rise to play a greater part.
This is the faith from which we start:
Men shall know commonwealth again*
From bitter searching of the heart.
We loved the easy and the smart,
But now, with keener hand and brain,
We rise to play a greater part.
The lesser loyalties depart,
And neither race nor creed remain
From bitter searching of the heart.
Not steering by the venal chart
That tricked the mass for private gain,
We rise to play a greater part.
Reshaping narrow law and art
Whose symbols are the millions slain,
From bitter searching of the heart
We rise to play a greater part.

I don't know what it's like,
to rise above it all.
Only, the feeling in your gut,
when one begins to fall.
And I couldn't speak a word,
on peace, serenity.
But I can tell a thousand tales,
of woe and misery.
If the gutter held a vote,
the king, would I be crowned.
So tell me things are looking up,
I'll show you the way down.