Colors to fill
pages, I mean.
But the shades and the lines --
Oh! Well those don't really exist.
The lines, I mean.
They too
are just more and more pigment
a buildup of a gradient
into a darker strip
of grains of ink
or oil
or chalk
or graphite
or any other wonderful, God-given blessing of an artist's tool
It's been so long, she says.
I say.
Because, it is me in there.
This is no Being John Malkovich story.
Though those moments happen too.
What the hell was that, when it happened?
All of a sudden I felt controlled
like a robot
An outside force drove my movements & I
like a Sim
that's right, a Sim
(It was all around the same time in my life)
just felt someone else doing all the work
And I, a slave to this invisible master
felt terrified for lack of knowledge
I still maintain that it occurred
What was that?
Haven't thought of it in ages.
I remember the geometric colored shape-patterned paper
That little alcove
But I think it happened
at the old house too
Among those wood-paneled walls
I miss those.
Something pure, good, sturdy about them
But no, I couldn't have just imagined it
But it wasn't like now
When this unstoppable force is driving the words out of me
through the pen & onto the A5
No
It was more like a separate entity
whose presence I felt
making me do it
It? I mean everything
If only for a few moments
A trembling child I became
I was.
And I never figured it out
I think I told her
Musta mentioned it, right?
She always knew everything else
Up until recently, anyway
She's at a distance now
From no fault of her own -- I placed her there
And I worry
that she's fading
The only one there for me
Really there
With almost no judgment
Maybe not the healthiest thing for me
But there nonetheless
I must ask
And in days ahead write another poem
I'll tell you
You
My indeterminate reader
What she says
Because that kind of power
that kind of drive
was and is
the most terrifying thing I've
ever endured.
That included.