"Slither"

Careless caress cuts,
softest shards of shattered glass.
Smile saccharine sweet,
lips smacking sin.
Short breaths reek regret,
spitting fucks and Gods
to shake this secret silence.
Lies strangle, stifle sound
as we slither, sifting stained sheets.
Shifting, somehow,
still sitting still.

"Always"

Always the pen finds purchase,
Dauntless, spitting into the void.
With aimless precision, proliferate.
A birth in every wanton stroke,
miracle mess, a fountainhead.
Ink willed builds, burns, brands
bleeds, fluid still
Slips and sticks, inviting,
a kiss from a stranger
that tastes like home.

It Happened Again

In the past month or so, I've twice woken up from a dream and thought to myself "that would make an awesome story! I should write this down." I've been keeping a notebook near my bed and on my person whenever possible explicitly for that purpose. I feel like I've let too many great ideas slip through my fingers like so much smoke.

Well, it happened again. It was like a total meta-dream. There was this great story, but I can't remember it now - all I can recall, for the life of me, is that it reminded me of that old story "The Gift of the Magi," but was different enough to matter. I remember dreaming about talking to my friends about how awesome of a story it would be, and them encouraging me to explore it. I remember thinking it could be part of a great short-story cycle (no doubt influenced by my taking a class on that literary form this semester). I distinctly remember waking up, and thinking to write it down. I even remember writing it down... twice!... but I guess those were just dreams too.

It's really remarkable how those ideas can just dissipate. It seemed so clear to me at the time, I didn't think I'd ever forget it. When I woke up, there was nary a trace of the story's core. It just seems like such a waste.

Left Brain; Right Brain

I missed my chance.

For a while now, I've had this nagging feeling that I'm doing it all wrong. I parade around, pretending I'm a writer, a poet. One would think that that would entail, you know, writing things. If not poems, not stories or editorials then at least a blog entry now and again. Hardly. I am the John Cage of literature. Witness the silence.

I'm haunted by this feeling that I'm wasting something great. I'm a smart guy, and reasonably talented. If I'm not creating some mind-shattering art, I feel like I should be curing cancer or something. Math comes easy to me, almost as easy as writing... the only difference is that I fucking hate math. But you know, the likelihood of changing the world through art that I don't even practice is pretty nil. If I were a scientist or mathematician, at least I'd be doing something, in the grand scheme.

The other day, we did this brief mock-experiment in Psych class. The class split in to two groups, the first asking the second a series of unrelated and ultimately unimportant questions. The theory was this - people who were right-brain dominant (the supposedly creative side of the brain) would look left while they thought about the answers. Vice versa for left-brained (the logical side of the brain).

It was kind of sad. Having been one of the people asking the questions and analyzing the results, I felt a little unresolved. I felt I had missed my chance. I wanted to know - I am left brained or right? I am supposed to be logical or artistic? Mastering cold fusion or thought-provoking poetry? I can do both, I just don't know which I should be doing. I tried to think of inane but challenging questions for myself. Of course I looked left, but who knows if that's just my subconscious telling me what I want to hear. Then again, that should be all the answer I need.