my dirty little secret

days can be a bit of a slog.

and then you’ll stumble over a project, become infatuated, want nothing but to talk about it, become a little tiresome. happiness hath no momentum.

but after awhile you have to say something. odds are it’s not going to be brilliant, so just move forward. the head is a heavy thing.

you make projects as a distraction partly– you think, I could make an essay form in this medium– even if I do it stumblingly. you write just whatever from the place you’re in. it’s a relief. sometimes that’s enough.

so you breathe and just keep putting the feet forward the best you can.

you think about how longer narrative forms are more challenging because they need to create interesting, muscular patterns– or at least maintain consistency to be readable or livable, for that matter. there is discomfort, weather and vexedness of a thousand varieties– so it goes. it would be nice if your narrative could have some gypsy shake, heft and bells.

by the end I always have to change the title– and then rearrange things, so it ends up not being the end– sometimes it’s good to give your audience opportunities to forgive you– small ones work well, large ones less well, you learn.

I don’t know what the appeal is of the second person vague– it’s both confrontational and obviously sneaky. vaguery has always been my sticky wicket, the slope I must slip on because I hate the editor.  grapple with the editor. do war with it. grit in the throat.

it is most excellent to have your mind thought sexy, odd and elemental, especially by thinkin folks you think are cool. you realize– I realize moments of feeling fully present. first person intensely. I imagine english as a foreign language– grammar and vocabulary most provocative, shaping what you say and letting it change on your lips. that inevitable second person! is the plot thickening sufficiently? or does it need some agent to make it coagulate. is it bad form to speak of coagulation? I do faux pas.

sometimes you, that is I, overcook the chicken. but it still feels necessary to make things bite-size, even if too dry to rightly swallow.

I know why the you– the you is the I that wants to be edited somehow. tailored to make more sense.

you have a thing for tightropes. tights, ropes. you have a thing, a relationship with words, relationship here being a dirty word. you choke on it, stutter, make sounds almost like sense. a little offkey, singing.