i think i’m starting to hate writing.
i think i’m starting to regret the nights i stayed up
trying to find the right word
for the right sentence.
i think i’m starting to grieve over the trees i killed
so i could spit out poems
and then throw them away.
what good has it done besides leave me
with endless lines of dissatisfaction
and baggy eyes?
what good has it done besides isolate me
and force me to spend my waking hours
in solitary confinement
within my own sphere of words?
and all it's given back to me is
a crowd of imaginary friends
i only know how to speak to
through ink.
i think i’m starting to loathe these so-called “friends.”
they were only inky caricatures i wished into existence.
when i poured my heart out, sobbed into their pages,
because writing is “therapy,”
all they did was stare back
and let me inhale more ink
and exhale more words.
but they didn't warn me when i inhaled too much
and let the ink overflow my lungs,
clog up my throat,
bleed everything over in black.
they didn't warn me when the ink started
killing me inside out.
i think i’m starting to hate writing
for
i have become a corpse,
slumped over my desk
—decaying,
as unfinished sentences leak out of my mouth
and bleed past my ears,
cascade like tears
down my cheeks
but i,
i am only trying to read the missing words.