Revising

Right now, I’m sifting through my “middle” pile, and trying to tweak some things here and there. I have a lot of poems in this pile that I’m still proud of, and I expect I’ll have another fleet of paper to send out soon.

This is going to be an extremely egotistical remark but… I feel this sometimes, when I stumble across a line or phrase that I’ve jotted down. I feel happy somehow, in a way that I haven’t really experienced in any other medium. I feel lucky that I stumbled onto a particular description or turn of phrase. I felt this a few times just recently, when I was going over my poems at Filter.

There were just these few lines that… on reading them, I thought to myself: Yes. Good. It’s a worthwhile life I’ve lived if all I have to show is this.

Jesus, that’s such an egotistical thing to think, isn’t it? But I confess, it’s a thought I’ve had. It feels like, somehow, I’ve stumbled across a particular combination of words in a particular order… like I’ve stumbled across some profound mystery. It seems as though my words reveal some bigger wisdom that had, up until now, gone completely understood but unannounced.

There are several poems I’ve written that, I’m proud to have been the one who wrote them. Were the world to end (or me, for that matter) tomorrow, I think I’d be ok with that. I have a small handful of lines and phrases that make me feel as though I didn’t completely waste the time that was given me.

I swear I’m not this egotistical about anything else. But with the writing… I don’t know. It’s there. I’m very proud of some of the things I’ve written. I believe very strongly in my writing in a way that I don’t towards other aspects of my life. I’m fairly reserved about most things, but with the writing… my ego is just, really, out of control. It’s a little nuts sometimes.

Some days, I’m amazed I can make it through a doorway without my head getting stuck.