Thursday, April 17, 2014

A friend encouraged me to keep writing--I've known for a while that I needed to, but it never seems like the right time. Or never seems like the right thought. Or never seems nonthreatening enough. In good moments I have felt that I wanted to just live and enjoy it, rather than watching it through a camera lens, so to speak. But I think that running beneath almost all of my choices not to write has been fear and discomfort--an uneasy reluctance to turn my gaze too sharply on any part of my life. I still have not rectified this.

But lately there have been enough difficult moments to drive me back toward my pen, though I still have actually written very little. I have taken to carrying a notebook around to encourage myself to use it. 

I composed this in my head tonight on my way home from the hospital, and wrote it down in the driveway when I got home. I labeled it,

"April 17, returning from my 58th visit to the hospital in as many days."

It hurts too much to keep hoping.
Some days, all I can believe is violence.

I hear, in bright, energetic voices--
--too bright; they hurt my eyes--
--that honesty is all. That masks
only hurt.
I'll be honest: I've said it myself,
in better days.
But how can I believe it when I,
seeing my hero falter, wince, struggle for breath,
Feel my heart pound, and weaken, and sink into the ground.

It hurts too much to keep hoping.
All I can believe
is violence.