August 15, 2025

do i have writer’s block
or does writer’s block have me
in a chokehold
from which i’ll never be released

do i have writer’s block
or is writer’s block my best frenemy
stalking me
fighting
and making up
and i keep them around for…
…for what?

do i have writer’s block
or is my whole life a lie
based on wanting to write
but never knowing how or when or why
or even if i really should
so i just
rush back
into writer’s block’s arms

do i have writer’s block
or are these excuses
to keep me from writing out
my whole soul?

May 16, 2024

if only i knew what i wanted to write about/
if only i didn’t start hundreds of poems
immediately after closing up the morning poetry page/
if only i could access all the unfinished lines in my mind
from last night and prior nights
going back years and decades
and mine them for inspiration for today
now
this morning//
but instead i find myself sitting and staring/
and hoping and despairing/
and writing about writing
and random morning things

[maybe, every few weeks, i should actively make morning poetry
into nighttime poetry
and see what happens
then]

July 30, 2022

does writing
get easier
the more i do it?

no.

does it at least get
more
intuitive?

no.

ok, but does it
seem like
it’s part of me,
like i could finally call myself
a ‘writer’
after writing
every single morning
since early 2020/
after finishing
a first draft
of a whole novel/
after keeping up
with this
daily poetry blog
for 470+ days?

kind of…?

October 13, 2021

sit down to write
sit down with millions of thoughts floating through your mind
sit down with the plan to get them all out and before you on the screen
ebbing from your fingertips onto the keyboard, seeing the magic as they appear…
and yet
(and yet)
sit down to write
and suddenly
the thoughts stop
and the fingers rest gently on the home keys
and the writing, it just does not come the way you thought it would.

so
start writing about not writing.
start writing about the expectations versus reality
start writing and end up with kind of a silly pattern before you on the screen:
a word or phrase
expansion on that word or phrase
another expansion that then makes each line longer than the last
(do that in threes, at least, and boy will it be visually appealing [for you at least])

but then
you have to ask yourself
is this the poem you want up on your poem-blog?