?

Where does writing
stop
and being
begin
?
I never was
good
at boundaries

Ink

I draw my ink
from a well
I cannot ever touch
The ground
stained black
with blood
of visions
born
and killed
for paper skin

Words

I’m a words person, so much.
That is how I communicate best,
how I process my thoughts,
how I define myself,
if I’m forced to give myself a label-
writer it would be.

But to me words are
my gift and my curse.
They caught me up in being
words for so long I forgot
who I was without them.
And I couldn’t write,
for so many years,
and it killed me to be
that silent and
that silenced.

And I still struggle
with letting any of them out
into the world because I
feel they are never really right.
Words are slippery and clanging
and painfully restrictive and
freeing at the same time.
It was in letting go
of words for me,
I found my words again.

Writer

I am not good at starting things.
That said, I’m not that great
at finishing things either.
Both shortcomings come
from the same place-
my ideals too high, and
confidence too low.

I have a tendency to overthink things.
To overthink my overthinking,
to overthink that overthinking
until I have paralysed
myself into a corner with
THINGS I MUST CONSIDER.

I should not really be a writer.
This is what I tell myself over and over.
I am not sure if I am helping myself
with this gem of truth
or whether it really
is the truth or not.
This is the nature of it-
is my lack of confidence
a side effect of my depression?
Or is my depression an excuse
for what really is
a lack of talent?

Things I have told myself
that may or may not be true:
I am not a very good writer.
I have no real writing experience.
I have nothing to say.
No one would want to read this.
This is a vanity project
masquerading as
an interesting read.
Get a real job.

Get a real life

I am not well.
I may never BE well.
I may not even BE at all
much longer,
and why would anyone
want to read advice from
someone just as broken
and useless as they feel?
Do I even have any advice to give?
Do I have anything to give at all?

I may not ever be a writer.
I may never be able to write
a single word again.
But I’ve been practising
being a writer,

And I think I’ve got
the madness,
the starving
and the
self loathing
cracked.