Why I Write Poetry

I have been up all night doing contract work. Despite everything I may say here, it was a brutal reminder that not everyone can write, regardless of hours upon hours of instruction. This is a good thing. Even after taking the majority of a year off, a writer still has bourgeois skills for which businesses will pay.

Outside a chorus of songbirds practices complex counterpoint as the night sky suffuses with the subtle shifts of light that signal dawn. Dixie, my beloved Jack Russell, is asleep on the crimson comforter in a corner of my office. My wife and Archie, the sickly one, are upstairs sleeping through the constant hum of the window-mounted air conditioner. Soon, I will shuffle into the living room where I can plunge into the thick cushions of a sofa and sleep an hour before my wife wakes. Soon, the seeming travails of the night will be nothing more than memory.

Right now, I can feel my eyes drooping more and more with each syllable I struggle to find. Right now, I can feel the joints in my fingers thicken with fatigue. Right now, I am convinced that this is the best of all possible worlds. Right now, I am convinced that my experience tonight is nothing near unique. I contain entire continents in the vestiges of my imagination. Just like everyone else. Just like everyone else.

Shantih shantih shantih