So, in addition to the account statements and financial documents I was shredding, I also had a big pile of poems I had printed out. My typical process is to write on the computer, then print it out, make edits, and then re-enter those changes on my computer. I’ve had a big backlog of printed poems pile up, but I never felt right about just tossing them whole.
Tonight, as I started shredding these poems, I was taken aback at what I was doing. Deep down, I want nothing more than to have as many people as possible read my writing. And yet here I am, taking means above and beyond to ensure that no one would read these poems. I was going so far as to destroy these poems, just so that no one would “steal” them.
This was an odd experience, and made me think a lot about how I view my poems. It’s made me think a lot about possession, and what we want to share with the world (versus what we want to keep to ourselves).
