creativity

June 23, 2026

/ HJ / Leave a comment

the quiet of the wee hours
the hours after all obligations have ended
and most humans have already gone to sleep —
those are the sacred hours for many a theatre-maker/
artist/
performer/
writer/

night-owl —

i used to worship at the feet of
two
and three am

but something changed in my internal workings;
was it a global pandemic?
or some genetic sleeper cell that had been waiting
all along to detonate?
or a combination of happenstance and physiology
all in one?

i can no longer own the title night owl

i am solidly
early
bird

i now hold in my heart my quiet, special time
of 5 and 6 and 7 am
when everyone
[and the night owls especially]
still dream in soft beds —
i am awake and working on
myself
and my own mind
and writing and writing before the world
churns again

the quiet of the wee hours
can be anyone’s,
whomever needs them

night owl

early bird

and anyone in-between

the hours can be religious in nature
or secular if you need no belief
but the sacredness comes from
inside

the sacredness comes from
what you
need

June 17, 2026

/ HJ / Leave a comment

it’s always so fascinating to me
watching my poetry
slide from one subject matter
[an introductory topic, if you will]
into the underlying
what-it’s-really-about
as if my conscious brain
*almost* gets it
but *always* needs to let the
subconscious brain take over
to get to the heart of the matter
[and if i try to control too much —
with form or function or rhyme or
look — the underlying message can’t come out;
or still does, but ruins whatever basis i had
laid out] and this pattern, of
almost-but-not-quite-knowing what my poetry will really
be containing, is like watching a movie of your own life
in front of you — you know what it was like behind your eyes
but from this third-person vantage, it’s all a little off
a little wild
a little unsettling in its
potential comfort,
but still entertaining
because of the new
perspective

that’s what my morning poetry is like
for me, most
mornings

May 15, 2026

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perfectionism kills

it kills creativity
it kills enthusiasm
it kills hope
and it kills souls

[if only my own words had any impact
on the chemicals in my brain that scream
‘that is true for everyone BUT you —
you are the one person for whom
perfectionism matters
MORE, it is
LIFE
OR
DEATH
and you MUST BE PERFECT
to survive…’]

March 27, 2026

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or needn’t poetry have a point?

we’re all just bumbling through
in these systems we’ve created

everything is made up
and maybe
that’s why i create

[because i’m not allowed to make whole new systems
so i make words fit my needs
rather than
the other way around]

[or something]

January 3, 2026

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i sit here
pining and whining
and wishing and wanting
to call myself
a writer

and i know
i know
my goodness i know
that i am a writer
as soon as i write
and i sit down every morning
and compose poem
after poem
after poem

but this desire is different

i want to create whole worlds with
the tip of my finger/pen/brain
i want to carry an audience on
a whole-ass journey and lead them
from beginning
to middle
to end

what i’m saying is

i wish to write prose
story
script
screenplay
novel
novella
creative essay
anything
i could even do it in poetry
if it felt right
but all i write
are these tiny windows into my own soul
and morning
while day
and night
i have epics unfolding inside me
and the minute i dedicate
a minute
or hour
or day
to getting it down
on paper/document/screen/anything
my skill with words seems
so
elementary
so
amateurish
so
trying too hard and getting not far at all
and i give up after
a page
a paragraph
a word

but the want

it remains

December 2, 2025

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sometimes
when i don’t know what to write
i’ll just lightly tap my fingertips
against the keyboard

i don’t press any of the buttons down

it’s not to make any sort of mark
on the electronic page
rather
i’m trying to shake creativity loose
from my fingers, hands, arms,
body —
i’m trying to rain down onto the keyboard
and maybe one of these puddles
will create words
that i can splash into
and from which
i can start
a poem

November 14, 2025

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i think it’s so fascinating
that i’ve found a way
to expand from “write what you know”
to “don’t let too much out about your inner mind”
where my black and white thinking was fully vacillating between
creative nonfiction
memoir/essay/this needs to be fact-checked as well as can be
and
i need to write a story that has never happened
i need to write a story that has never been written
i need to 100% make this up or it’s cheating or cheapened in some way
and
both options overwhelmed me so

so

i found a way to springboard off of my past and thoughts and events
and land in the ether of “this definitely isn’t my personal experience”

i never knew it could be so easy
to be so
creative
[and to let it flow
in the way it does]

November 13, 2025

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my mind chases ideas
races miles a second
when there’s nothing to occupy it —
story ideas from every fleeting thought/
a line of a poem repeating and repeating and repeating/
all asking questions of me:
could this concept turn into a play?
could this plot twist be startling enough to entertain?
could this mulling be the next
great
american
novel?

[i gotta say, as exhausting as it is to have all these ideas all the time,
and as disappointing as it is to never remember them when i’m near
pen and paper/screen and keyboard,
it is so much better than the alternative i dealt with
for decades
of every time there was any sort of quiet
and my mind wasn’t 100% occupied
it just told me how much of a horrible, terrible, inhumane person i was
and how i should probably go die
or something…so yeah…would definitely prefer
this
to that]

November 11, 2025

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poetry
to keep non-poets away

that is not for me to say

i am here to help you see
the arts are always welcoming
you need only find the place that makes sense
in your own soul

everyone can poem
everyone can paint
everyone can act/sing/dance/make/
do
if you want to
if your drive is to express yourself

[it gets complicated when careers and livelihoods are at stake,
but art for art’s sake —
that is always for
every
one]

November 9, 2025

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the everyday tasks
of being alive

[why is feeding one’s body so much more important
in our society
than feeding one’s soul?]

impart my own passions to me
and i’ll show you how cheap food can taste
when it is only for the nourishment
of keeping oneself alive

[i, along with every human deep down, wish more to

Thrive]