she la fuit.

This is how it happens.

Someone finds something beautiful. Or useful. Or both. The thing they find is good in itself, but the person who finds it soon thinks the thing was found on their own merit, because they did something right to find it. But even though the person thinks the thing is theirs, someone else comes along and wants it too, because that other person is jealous of the first person who found the good or beautiful thing and wants it for himself. Or herself. I'm not being biased here. So the second person tries to take the thing from the first person, because he (or she) is convinced that the thing will make him (or her) happier. Or more _________________. (Insert appropriate adjective; e.g. smart, powerful, rich, valuable.) The second person does whatever he can to get the thing from the first person. He lies. He is violent. He is hateful. He is spiteful. He is lustful, gluttonous, avaricious, slothful, wrathful, envious, and prideful. (Count those adjectives).

He gets the good and beautiful thing. Only now it's stained with blood (not his). Because of the thing, he is more powerful. He wants more of the thing so he can be more powerful. Or wealthy. Or valuable to society. You decide. He thinks about how he can get more of the thing. He doesn't want to get it himself. He's too powerful, wealthy, and valuable to do that. So he goes back to the first person. He threatens the first person with his power, wealth, and sense of status, and the first person gets more of the good and valuable thing for the second person, who grows more and more powerful, wealthy, and important.

Until.

A bigger person, or body of people, sees the growth of the second person and doesn't like it. So the third person(s) decide to stop the second person. That happens these ways.
A) The third person is crafty. He wants to stop the second person, but without the second person knowing. So he goes back to the first person and pays off the first person to help the third person get whatever good and beautiful thing it is the second person wants. The third person may even go to the second person and give him a second thing, just to keep the suspicion away. Until the second person finds out what the third person is doing with the first. But because the third person is still more powerful than the second, the second person decides to take it out on the first person by being more of one of the above seven adjectives. So logically, the first person wants the seven adjectives to stop being against him, so he goes back to giving the second person more of the first thing. The third person doesn't like this very much, because it means his position and power is threatened, so a war breaks out over who can control the first person faster, and get more of the first thing.
B) The third person goes to the second person and starts a fight to see who is really stronger. The stronger person must deserve the first thing, of course. Except now that the second person is almost as strong as the third, it's a really long fight. And both the second person and the third person are beating up the first person to get more of the first thing to help them win the fight. A war breaks out over who can control the first person faster, and get more of the first thing.

Either way, the first person doesn't really want to be in the war.

Until.

The second convinces some of the first people (there's been some cellular division and regeneration) that their side is right, and promises them the good things if the first person will help them in their part of the war. In counteraction, the third person goes to the rest of the first people, and tells them that their side is right, and that they should help them instead. More promises are made for good things. The war gets bigger.

But nobody ever really sees any of the good things, except the leaders of the second and third people.

At first, the war was just in one place, but then, the second (or third; you pick, it doesn't matter) realizes that fourth or fifth or sixth peoples might want some of the good things, and that they can sell the good things to the other people and get other good things in return. Only the second (or third) person knows that if the other people know about the exploitation of the first person involved in getting the first good thing, the other people won't want it, so they don't talk about the exploitation, and sell it anyway. Only they don't sell all of it at once, because if there's not a lot of it, it will be seen as valuable, and people will want it more and more, so much so that even once they hear about the exploitation and seven deadly adjectives, they'll be so hungry with desire that they don't really care and want it anyway. And all the movies and songs and t-shirts and campaigns and projects in the world won't make a difference.

Until.

Someone really decides that it's got to stop.

And really decides that it's got to stop. Decides so much that they don't support the buying or selling of anything involved in what started the war(s) in the first place. Decides that someone else's life is not worth comfort, or utility, or functionality, or chic newness. Or cool points. Or wealth. Or power. Or status. And they give it up. And they love the first person. And the second. And the third. And the fourth and fifth and sixth and they keep on loving until they can't stand it anymore.

And they don't run away. They don't flee or hide or pretend it's not there and they aren't comfortable.

They just love. And hurt.

Thoughts on Being

My friend Charlotte wrote a line once that I really liked. She's a better writer than I am, a freshman at Smith. She'll share an alma mater with Sylvia Plath so I already feel like she's got something going for her. Anyway. She wrote this line about instead of liking poetry, she is poetry--I am a poem, my hips are commas carving out a space in the air--I liked that line, and the rest of the poem was good, too, it made me jealous of her ability to command words to do something for her, to speak to people.

My creative writing professor told me once that I could make a living out of writing, he's told me several times that I'm good at it. I don't really know what that means. In a conference once I told him that writing was coming easier to me than I expected it would but I think I lied. Writing is hard. It scares the hell out of me because it means always putting yourself out there to be judged. And people are assholes, they judge, and it's usually not nice.

Any kind of writing is hard; academic papers are hard and short stories are hard. Plays are worse and don't even start on poetry. And the thing about creative writing is that it's big. How do you define "creative writing?" I think even the most scholarly of papers require some degree of creativity, and a lot of the smut at Borders has nothing creative about it. Then how do you define the writer? You've got the serious writer, who produces piece after piece that really means something, and then you've got the asshat who thinks his 14 lines of free verse will really capture the world. Sometimes it does. It's just so hard to talk about writing.

But...

Writing means the very real probability of someone reading your work who's smarter than you and not liking it. Or saying it's wrong. At least if it's an academic paper and they don't like it you can always say you misread the sources, or were offering a different interpretation of a common idea.

But if it's your work--your heart and mind on the page--Christ, that's a terrible thing to have shot down. Because if they don't like it, or they think it's wrong or--worse--bad. Well, what are you going to do? That's you on the page-not someone else's review of a larger piece, but you. Little bits of your psyche thrown up on the page for the world to see.

It's worse than being naked.

It's like being naked while having eggs chucked at you by people who probably can't write any better than you can, or worse, they can.

I am not a poet, a playwright, and I'm certainly not a novelist or even anyone "creative" or "talented." I just put words on a page that I hope make sense, that mean something to me and pray to God that I'm not suddenly naked covered in egg yolks by the time the thing's done.

I want so badly for my "work" to be good--but what is good? Good gets in the way, approval gets in the way right there along with trying too hard. I think that as a writer, I'm screwed. I haven't an idea in my head that hasn't been tried a thousand times. The emotions I feel are the same as yours, and how am I supposed to capture the way you experience your life? Who am I to think my life's trials are worthy of putting on a page and calling them literature? I'm not dark enough to be a poet's fool, witty enough to be a cynic's comrade, and certainly not brave enough to not give a damn.

When I was young(er) I had dreams of being the next great somebody, tough and resilient, with a John Wayne stagger and a stoic's heart. Only I realize I'm a sell-out. I'll write what people want to read, I'll write what people tell me is good, I'll push aside those pieces that don't go over well and people can laugh at the manuscripts when I'm too dead to care.

My flaw in writing is that I want to be the best when there isn't one. There's not a best--there's a talented, a prolific, a versatile, or captivating, and a lot of other basically meaningless adjectives, but I don't want to be an adjective, I want to be a noun.
I am a poem.
My hips are commas carving...

I am a writer.
Lips sketching.... sketching what? How should I know? I have no answers. Sometimes I don't even have a decent conclusionary paragraph.