The truth is I haven’t written anything worth reading in four years and before that one poem was a stretch of adolescence and writing names I liked in lists of happy families.
When I do string sentences together I half close my brain’s lids to them—ignore punctuation in favour of long dashes (what rule could govern the quick dashdash?) and make parenthetical statements containing statements that belong outside of brackets, or italicize— I mean italicize!— instead of using each word’s internal rhythm to pattern its own emphases.
Each act of writing begins with apology. For absence, forgetfulness, anxiety (dear friends I owe you emails, letters, postcards I found funny, valentines made with glue sticks, glitter, love); (dear self I owe you the embarrassing evidence of journal entries) ; (and, finally—but there is no more to say about my writing)— bits of stories, lines of poems, a title— (that is either gentle or honest)
Can’t I write first (second, third, fourth) and (sorry) later?
