i discarded all other ways

so you deal with the difficulty
of family members supporting you
yelling “make money! Get a job!” and
all you do is march back to privacy
doing what doesn’t make money but
feels good and that you know is essential
but you alone know it; it’s terrible and
the best life available, but no one will believe you
until much, much later—unbearably later; but you get to dance in the question
of what happens if you don’t make money or get a job? What if I can’t be moved,
stopped, distracted, paused? I am a great big bulldozer, a burning star, a calamity; who could do anything about it? Who could be indifferent to my refusal? What if I’m not ashamed? What if I still believe in myself
even after being called a sponge, a burden; I am unshielded yet take the heat gladly, stand as Ezra Pound said the poet must, in the harsh Sophoclean light, taking your wounds from it gladly

we Write because we don’t want to die

because more days come, and we keep the train moving

because trains, land, childhood, slavery, the past

nightmares

reality

patience

diction

sentenced to the sentence

getting lost without fear

making life new

it’s nice to be no one; be a blip, a mere man, a man whose name you forget

a rehearsal of sins, a longing for absolution
a wanting something i can never name soon enough

there’s nothing wrong with being nothing; we’re only nothing when we’re looking at objects now look away, see? this presence and identity flies away, you’re free to forget it

i fear no mistakes because nothing is a mistake

i fear no feedback because i am able to not care about anything i’ve done

i live to be wrong

i discarded all other ways