Struggle

Poems are not necessary.

They are want; they are desire.

I don’t need to write poems. I want to write them.

It is the struggle inherent to desire that I find necessary. Necessary to my poems. Necessary to being human.

I teach high school. I have a daughter, a family. Most days I don’t have time to work on writing. I write poems during lunch or on planning. More often, little bits, a line or title, will strike when I can’t write it down. I use my phone; if I’m driving, I tell Siri to take a note. Some of what is recorded is unintelligible, hilarious:

“Birds on a typhoon of conversation taking place in their Thailand.”

I can’t remember what this was supposed to say exactly. I don’t think it would have turned into my greatest poem, but I tried, and I continue to try. I sometimes repeat lines over and over again trying to memorize them:

“There was no ceremony about you / only the slapping and biting / of…”

The rest is gone, but it is a start.

I keep a notebook. There are months when I don’t write a single word in it.

I read as much as I can.

This is about struggle. It is about want and desire.

I don’t need to write, but I want to.

 

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If you have time, return to a poem you started but didn't finish, for whatever reason.