Not A Professional

I write because that’s what I do.

That’s the only reason.

If there was another reason, 

someone would have noticed me by now, 

maybe a patron…I’d be famous then.

I still like reading what I wrote before…

not so much now at the end of this thing,

what do you call it?

Oh yeah, life, the thing that keeps happening 

until it doesn’t, I remember…until I don’t.

It’s been like painting a wall and the paint 

is running out, so you add thinner so you can

complete the job The paint doesn’t cover

as well, but you keep going because that’s 

what you do, like breathing, but the lungs don’t 

work so well, so you’re on oxygen,  and you’d

like to make love because you remember how

great it was, but you don’t feel the passion.

Things start to clear because of less distraction.

And you begin to see people, those you know and

others you see in the street, in a different way, like,

what’s wrong with them? But then you realize you

used to be more that way. You’re not, not because

you learned anything at all, but because you forgot

everything you knew, a kind of blissful ignorance,

maybe, or even a childlike innocence, that’s better…

a second childhood, sure, gurgling words to myself.

So, no, I never took writing seriously…I just wrote 

a lot, that’s all. 

“So what?” you might say,

as I do now.