begin

i must begin by writing about writing, of course, and hopefully do that in a manner that is true and raw, and if i do then maybe i can write about more than writing. the words are not here right now, i have not heard the right ones in so long. why aren’t they put together in those ways anymore, the ways that i think they used to be put together in. they used to scrape and gnaw, but right now they are harmless. i hate it when the words are harmless. the world seems stripped of magic, of meaning, of purpose. there’s no reasons anyway, so at least words should come together to make new things, to explain something unexplainable, to cast new shadows, to change colours, to make me feel my skin stripped over my bones differently. i am trying to be true and raw, trying to peel away each pretension i have gathered over the years, but in order to do that i must write through it. that means i must write for days. there was a period of drought, it was so painful, but at least the want is coming back, the want to make, to learn, to figure out how the fuck to put things together so that inside of my cupped fingers there is a light, even if small. i must always have this want. i must trust this want. it is the only thing i am willing to trust in this life — everything else, every love, will be temporary. every body will leave me. every comfort might be stripped away, and new ones will always come. every street i love will be taken away and made strange again. the want for words is mine, the need to make is mine. if my brain doesn’t work good, ok. i don’t know if all people feel it as bad as i do, the space under my ribs that’s hollow and tight and grey, that tells me that all of this is not for any reason, that to be alive is strange, that going from day to day is, on some base level, foolish. i feel it bad, and right now i feel it very bad. but that’s ok, because i can make things, and then there’s something new in the world, and it takes away the fear. that is the only reason: oranges in the sun, shadows under dancing leaves, green stalks needling through the surface of the lake and bowing their heads. to see something beautiful and mark it. to make something that make somebody else, or even just me, say brrrr and shake my spine out because i felt something there, for a second.