Midnight Entry

It's a quarter to midnight and I can't sleep. I am feeling antsy. Actually, I've been antsy for weeks and I didn't know why.  It finally hit me...at the beginning of the year I had given myself a deadline to fully revise my novel by my birthday.  Next week is my birthday and I am NO WHERE with this freakin' novel. I am ready to throw in the towel burn it and call it quits on this project despite the fact that scenes still play in the back of my brain.  My manuscript and it's many many revisions are sitting on a shelf over my desk collecting dust.  Even now I  can see it in my peripheral vision while I write this entry. The reality is I don't know what to do with it.  I don't know how to enter the piece any more, how I would go about making changes, or what's it all for really.  I've lost my initial impulse, that loving feeling, that je ne se quoi.  It feels like damaged goods and I'm not really sure I can salvage the damn thing. Makes me sit at my computer and sigh...loudly.  The defeatist attitude is doing more harm than good.
Of course, it doesn't help that I spent the last two days reading about the success of a young writer recently.  I am NOT comparing myself to her...I'm really not...I can tell you don't believe me but I'm not (I say this in a very high-pitched whiny voice, even in my head)  Setting aside this young woman's success...I acknowledge that I'm published and I've produced work on different platforms. Those before projects are still real.  The fact that my new projects are "meh" at best and not very innovative makes me doubt myself and my abilities.  I know this is usually the time when it happens, right now, around my birthday.  I do this self-assessment of what am I working on, what am I excited about with my creative projects and really the only thing that I've worked on is my little Clara Betta (short story) that basically got rejected from ONE publication and I want to quit, throw in the towel, call in for a substitute, stick my head in the sand and wait for the dismay to subside.
I am VERY aware of the clock ticking to try to get as much work done before I die.  Seriously, I could walk off the sidewalk and die of an aneurysm in the middle of the street tomorrow.  Yes, I know this is morbid...I'm Mexican, bear with me here...the point is I don't know when my last day will be but I want the writing to get better, the writing to find an audience, my work to be out in the world. * deep breath* You get my point. So the past week, I've been writing poetry.  I always go back to my first love.  I know I'm rusty, it's been some time since I've written passages but again bear with me as I work through this creative phase.

Best,

Lily


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Location Not Available Yet

I am located on the other side of the door.
You, yawn, scratch and wonder what next.
We are not sharing secrets over tea, since you remember the before-time. You knew me way back when...You talk so much I've stopped listening, that doesn't stop you from continuing your incessant chatter. I am careless with your memories. The thin rain has started to fall leaving a thin sheen over the afternoon. You plunder my thoughts with ginger-scented letters. Sugar on my tongue and madness consumes me for a spell. I am trying to put enough distance between my body and your touch, between your laughter and my want, between my words and your music. There is so little difference between us, space-wide. The glass of water had been sitting on the window ledge too long. How warm your skin tastes against my lips. The room hums with your breathing, it reminds me that I'm still alive, barely.

Hinterland

I am caught in the callous
country of language.
Borderline. Fragments.
Waking words. Clarity.
The truth is there is no truth
only a moment, a thought.
I am wasting time dancing
around the periphery
like a fairy in a pink tutu
instead of hunkering
down, sinking waist
deep into the mud.
The sky is the color
of green ash, waiting
to rip open thunder,
lightning and rain.

Stand with an open hand
while a grey mourning
dove perches on a white
fence murmuring to
the cherry blossom
tree, remembering
Spring together.