Timekeeper

You and I, we were born from similar conditions

And we carved our lives with similar decisions

In many ways we're eachother's reflections

but we've ceased to be eachother's voices,

over crackling phone lines

We don't make time,

we don't take time,

the way it used to be

Our conditions now vary

between you and me

I'm sorry I can't be of any more use to you

That I can't act like you expected me to

But what were your expectations, really

It's not my trade to cherish defeat

Congratulations for buying time

It's all still for rent,

it's all still on lease

As am I

I've tried to follow your every development

I've been your companion to your every dead end

I've overlooked everything and given my consent

It's not that I don't care anymore,

I just ran out of energy

and it's not enough for me

to just stand by and watch you leave

Our situations now differ

Our situations are unique

I'm sorry I can't be of any more use to you

That I can't act like you expected me to

But what were your expectations, really

It's not my trade to cherish defeat

Congratulations for buying time

It's all still for rent,

it's all still on lease

As am I,

my little firefly.

Ain't I Always

I'm troubled by money issues, hell, ain't I always. I'm not sure how I managed to mis-plan the summer's budget so badly and well this month ain't really any exception. It's a lot of fees and other stuff like buying books for school now in the start of the semester, so I really should have seen it coming, but I guess I'm not so good at planning. Also, this particular week eats money and spits them out again chewed-up-beyond-recognition because we're doing so many random money-consuming things, scheduled and non-scheduled... but hell, you only live twice, right. It just sucks though, there's such grand plans for everything stashed away inside my head and I can't make them happen because I'm a fucking student and live off student loans. And still I'm stubborn enough to stride against this and use my only earned money to travel when I actually can't afford it, but I'm looking forward to it so badly I wouldn't dream of it being otherwise. I guess that while I contemplate matters such as personal finances (or rather the lack of them) I can do poor-people stuff such as writing. There's no fee for poetry.


Speaking of which there's been a couple of lines ringing in my head lately. I might just go and make a poem out of it.
POET IN THE JAR

Oh, That Sweet Smell Of Recognition

Or that may be an exaggeration, but to hell with it, today I've reason to celebrate and I'll damn well celebrate, if only in the written word. And the written word is exactly what is celebrated. Today I received an email telling me my short story Trygghetszonen (The Safe Place) placed in the top 10 in Icakuriren's contest. This was the first contest I submitted to this year and now here are the results. I don't know my exact placement, only that it was somewhere between the fourth and tenth, but the good news is the prize. Half the prize is a bundle of 'inspiring books', the second half is publication, along with the other nine stories in the top 10, in Icakuriren's anthology of the winning entries. So! One baby step towards recognition! Really it doesn't matter what happens next - the confirmation is enough, for me. That maybe I'm not wasting all that time I'm "sitting on my chamber" typing away but that someone out there might find my words worth something. And publication really is the best prize I can think of. Congratulations to me! It's very rarely I get to be this bragging and selfish, but it's worth it. I feel like I'm invincible right now, and the news even made me go finish up that story that didn't seem to want to end itself, so that's yet another good thing that came out of this.
Now remains to see how the other contests go. I don't have high hopes for the fourth one, for which I've written absolutely squat, the prize money is ENORMOUS, and many established writers enter; but on the other two, who knows. One has been submitted and I'm waiting to hear about it, one is finished and will be submitted tomorrow, and the third has been half-finished - but since it's dependent on the events on the second one, I suspect finishing it will go pretty quickly. Let's all cross our fingers that this is not the last you'll hear from me as a writer.
ADIOS!
POET IN THE JAR

Mushrooms

My dream last night was just completely wicked. It started when I scratched my ears and discovered there was a small colony of mushrooms growing behind my right one, and when I tried to remove them they started bleeding, so I had to let them stay where they were. Everything was in a dirty and low-tech kind of future where most of the city was made out of quilts and patches of fabric. I was for some reason fleeing through the city landscape. I had woken up and no one knew my name, I guess I was trying to find it. I had the brilliant idea that I could signal to my grandmother by pulling out old rugs from a cupboard and hanging them out a certain window displaying a certain color code. With me for some reason was the old woman who's the nanny of my child in The Sims 2. My grandmother replied from her window with another color code and we hurriedly took off to see her. When we arrived, my grandmother, grandfather, sister, cousin and me were all wearing protective gloves while sitting down at the dinner table and we were apparently going to help them out on the big cleaning day, something we did every week. I started browsing through a magazine where I read a very moving article of two old men who used to be soldiers as kids until they inherited a fortune from a distant relative. It was so moving that I started to cry, at which point my grandmother said, "Oh hi John, what are you doing here?" and Rockstar entered the kitchen wearing a giant orange parka. They then exchanged formalities while I tried not to look like I had been crying and made myself busy trying to find that article again to show my sister. Rockstar turned his back on the table and dozens of chocolate bars started falling out of the back of his head onto the floor, something that everyone found to be a hilarious joke. Then he left the room and we left the house on motorcycles because for some reason we were now being chased. During our motorcycle ride I spotted some steampunk-ish aircrafts in the sky, including three of them looking not-quite-but-almost like they were police ships, and I said: "It's my old crew!", kicked off from my bike and jumped all the way up to the police craft where I was sucked into it, but no one else was on the ship. I took a moment to think about whether I was the police or if my ship had been cleverly masked as a police ship and if I was really good or evil. That's when I realized I had been betrayed by someone because the government agents appeared and begun chasing me. They chased me into a building full of parking lots where millions of small red dots started appearing on the ground. My allies still left on the ground called out, "RUN!" because they had spotted the man-size bunny bombs (yes. I'm not making this shit up) that was about to blow my ship to pieces. I jumped out of the ship, which hit the bunny bombs and exploded and I had to run as fast as I could across all those red dots, which were tiny laser bombs and blew up only a moment after I stepped on them. Amazingly I saved myself out of that floor and just like that I was in a hotel, learning my nanny had been the one who ratted me out; she had apparently taken a shot to look like an old woman but was actually a male agent and everything started to make so much sense (...). I summoned my allies from around the hotel's different rooms ordering them to put their costumes on and it turns out we were all kind of superheroes. The perspective was totally reversed and I became one of my nameless allies with long red hair and armed with those comforters you give to kids, but that were actually grenades. This way I could distract a blue-haired maid who discovered me as I tried to sneak out and then take the elevator down. Then I was magically myself again and back on the motorcycle in a landscape that looked like Nevada's. I crashed the motorcycle when I saw a flying man in the sky and realized it was Rockstar flying away. I lay on the ground motionless and I think I shouted things at him, but of course he was too far away to hear me.
And then I woke up.
Anyone wants my dreams?
POET IN THE JAR

Sagittarius!

Here I am again fellas, refusing to give up on my niche (completely random blog posts), the way that Karo refuses to give up on her niche (fan fiction) and DJ refuses to give up on HIS niche (various reviews). Perhaps it's like me and DJ discussed the other day, that we need these niches to kind of keep us afloat and give us a break from all that other, more serious writing; such as poetry and prose. My head has been crammed pretty full of prose lately and I think that if I spend another night dreaming about my own stories I will have start using happy sleeping pills or something.

Anyhow! School resumes on Monday next week, but for me, the Sagittarius; it starts on Thursday. Why is that? Didn't I say? Because I'm a Sagittarius and therefore I am overly fond of committing actively to hundreds of projects at once (I'm sure that Sylvi will recognize the syndrome) and I've got loads of stuff to attend and do before actual school starts, most of it having to do with welcoming the new first-years. On Thursday it begins with attending a planning meeting with teachers and a bunch of other involved students regarding next week's introduction; immediately followed by a planning meeting with the teacher responsible for my particular department (graphics); in turn immediately followed by the annual "fika" where students in the second and third year get the chance to meet with the new first-years before school actually begins. Then Friday, which is relatively free, and then we spin on to Saturday evening, where the, also annual, back to school festivity is held. Followed on Sunday by putting up the campus tents and meeting up with involved students for yet another "fika". Then, Monday, and not even then will I begin school; since I'm to be present at introductory meetings all day, including speaking to the new students in the graphics department and answering all possible questions they might have during the afternoon. Phew! You see why it's a little disturbing that I forgot my calendar at Mom and Dad's and can't write all these things down; but luckily I have a nice mother willing to send it to me by post.

I have a little mixed feelings about going back to school. I love studying what I do, yet I have a nagging feeling that I just don't have the motivation it takes to become good at it. I'm one of those people who had never tried any of this stuff before I got here and I'm still struggling with basic things. Passing courses will be possible, no doubt, I'm just wondering if I'll ever be good enough at it, to actually make a living of it. Only passing the courses isn't really enough within this branch. You have to really stand out and I have this impression that I'll never really reach to that level. What you'll think is, if it's just a matter of motivation, then make yourself motivated; but it's been proven before that it's not that easy, it can't be turned up from nowhere by a flick of a magic wand. Lately, all I have felt an urge to do is write. I can't even draw, whenever I sit down and try I don't have the patience it takes. At the same time, it'll be kind of a relief to get back to school and have a solid every-day life to revolve my routines around and not live as haphazardly as I have been doing all of this summer. Next summer I have to find myself a job, it hasn't exactly been ideal to survive the summer with part loans, part working under the table (and yes I'm not afraid to admit that has been the case). I keep thinking about that white house and about that typewriter and about having every day revolve around writing. I can't get it out of my head. It's impossible. It stresses me out beyond belief to know that I have three more writing contests to submit to still, and that at the same time I have to do all this university stuff; but hopefully I can pull it off. Hey, I pulled off Nanowrimo, and I think that's a bit (only a tiny tiny bit) bigger than writing a couple short stories, which are half-finished anyway and only need some additional work, the foundation has been laid down. I really, really wish I can take part of Nanowrimo this year, but I have absolutely no idea if it will be possible; I think it's at the time where we study our Animation Project and it's such an important course that I can't miss it for anything. I can't use the solution that I did back in Gothenburg where I could just skip some exams and redo them later. This university is quite different. Either how, I still wish there'll be time, and that I'll have energy for it; later in November. I'm convinced November will be pretty grey and boring in all other aspects... like every year. The whole reason everyone does Nanowrimo to begin with.

By the way it's totally cleansing for body and mind to sit down on my patio (that's what the dictionary says... but the word sounds much more fancy than the uteplats really is) with a big cozy blanket and a cup of coffee. I think that I'll have to make that a habit for as long as the weather allows it.

Off for what I hope will be the night where I finish translating Viveka's Tale and make some progress on my other writing, 

Sincerely yours,

POET IN THE BAR

...pardon me, that's supposed to be 'jar'

Viveka

I looked everywhere for you
Through every door, in every room
I thought I could conjure you to life
That you could be returned
That you never died


Everywhere I heard your voice
Everywhere I saw your eyes
Regardless of choice,
Regardless of mind
You presented yourself
To my memory
Ghost to be


I can't retrieve you from the other side
I can't glorify you after you died
I can't grasp my own dreams anymore
but I can fulfill yours
In your name
Even though it's not the same


I had to withstand facing your Reaper
I was forced to embrace
unpredictability
I confronted a mirage of you
That was really me


Everywhere I heard your voice
Everywhere I saw your eyes
Regardless of choice,
Regardless of mind
You presented yourself
To my memory
Ghost to be


They wouldn't let me be,
they chased after me
I ran for you, to save your remains
To save what I remember
from damage and stains


You couldn't face your Reaper alone
Isn't that why I was allowed to be
When all awhile I wouldn't see
that was your only ambition for me


And my dearest,
Everywhere I heard your voice
Everywhere I saw your eyes
Regardless of choice,
Regardless of mind
You presented yourself
To my memory
Ghost to be


My dearest
I don't know what I can achieve
I don't know why I do believe
I can change things or make them better
All I know is that I can't stay here
This heartless existence
is more than I can stand
but wasn't that your true intention
Wasn't that part of your plan
This heartless existence
Was created by you
By your hand


And my dearest
Everywhere I hear your voice
Everywhere I see your eyes
Regardless of choice,
Regardless of mind
You present yourself
To my memory
Ghost to be

Selma - God's Helmet

Hello again, it's me, your Poet. I've taken a temporary break in the writing of my short story in order to tell you a little something about it and above all in order to motivate myself to go on. Progress, as always, is slow; especially when you spend so much time procrastinating even though the chore in question is indeed not only necessary but also entertaining. If you're sensitive to spoilers, it might be best if you don't go on reading.

The story tells of teenage girl Selma, a descendant to survivors of the nuclear war in 2011, who now, in 2033, lives underground with other survivors. Selma is the only resident in the underground system of bunkers and tunnels who is immune to the effects of radiation. After her sister, Viveka, dies from radiation sickness, Selma decides to make a journey to the Surface to honor her memory. On her way to the Surface, Selma travels through five rooms, and it is her progress through these rooms that are depicted in the short story. In the first room she is forced to meet with her old guardian Samara, who is now suffering from the same disease that took the life from Viveka. In the second room Selma meets with underground inhabitants Checkered Hat Man and Tobacco Man, faces Checkered Hat Man in a game of dice and finally wins, enabling her to go on to the third room. In the third room Selma confronts the memory of her sister and has an unpleasant insight about her own mortality. The fourth room is where we find her now, and I'm slightly reluctant to keep telling the tale; mainly because the only notes I left for myself about the fourth room was "mission revealed, you are condemned" and that does have quite the alarming feel to it. The fifth room is the last before, or possibly the same as, the Surface, and is the final part of the story. Here Selma will unveil who her sister really is; the big twist of the story.

That's the main parts of it but not, at all, what the story is actually about. In fact it is framed by another story, one told by Viveka. When you get the chance to read it, this will become clear to you. As usual, if I don't have any success in the contest this story is written for, I will translate it into English and make it available to English-speaking readers.

That was actually enough to inspire me to go on writing. See you mid-war,
POET IN THE JAR

Wondrous Solution

What is there left for me now
As your life progresses, and mine
Always seems to fall behind
In a slower pace
What do you suggest I do
How do I close the rift
you tore open
With claws and
Silent screams

What is there left for me to dream of
I'll never run into your ghost anymore
I'll never lie awake at night
Seeing your demons, fly me by
You've gone to hunt for other demons
Or maybe, for the first time in your life
You're not looking for monsters,
out there for you to find
Maybe for the first time
You look around you
and it all makes sense
Crystal clear sense

Should I be mourning you still
Mourning old games of hide and seek
Those eyes, that you reserved for me
How out of place am I to criticize you
To ask of you to stay
I never said the words
Not to your face
Only inside my own mind
when I daydreamed

What is left to daydream of now
What is left but emptiness and grief
Gradually I've realized
I was never as meaningful to you
As you were meaningful to me

I'd like some of that miracle potion, please
That wondrous solution you drank with ease
That bottle of medicine, that vial
That has ensured your survival
That saved you from denial

What is there left for me now
But only flashes of remembrance
To feed on my subconscious

Hand me that bottle when you're done with it
Maybe we can share it temporarily for a sip
like we used to do
And maybe you could drug me, too
And have your eyes disappear on me
Passionately absent
Violently absent

Don't get me wrong, I'm not keeping you
Evidently, I lost you a long time ago
I'm only wondering, now that you're free
What is there exactly,
Left for me


POET IN THE JAR

Photographs

I took a picture of my newly dyed hair, looked at it and thought: one day these pictures is all that will be left of me. One day I will have been reduced to flat, two-dimensional replicas and gather dust in some drawer until no one can remember how I laughed or what I wrote or how I used to sing or who my friends were or how tall I was or what I used to wear or how I looked like while sleeping. Some day I will have left this existence and my name will disappear and the only thing left of me will be these photographs. And maybe that is why I strive so much to write, to immortalize my thoughts in words so that at least something can live on after I'm gone; and maybe that is also why I'm so destructive, all at once; maybe that is why sometimes I just feel like saying fuck it, life, and not care if I live or die. And the more I think about it now, the more it actually seems as the wish to never die is equal to the wish to be destructive, the more it seems like they are connected, like they are dependent on each other... as if it indeed is true, that destructiveness is how you learn to accept your own inevitable death, as a friend of mine put it... I've been thinking so much about death lately and I just can't seem to get it out of my head, which is probably the reason the short story I started to write for a contest has become an abstraction over my thoughts about mortality and overall something much bigger than I ever intended, and I'm not even sure anyone who reads it will even understand; there seems to be so few who can read between lines.


I kind of miss my old sarcastic self who knew all these things and would treat them with dark humor. It seems all I can do nowadays is look at them and feel the tears in my eyes. Everything has become impossible, everything's a hopeless case, I've given up all hope about people, about man kind, about this world that isn't going to last, about how it is even possible to LIVE without constantly fearing to die, how is it possible? Is it because everyone is blunt and prefer to ignore it, prefer to worry about bills and getting to work on time... because no one wants to realize how fragile they are, no one wants to realize they will turn into photographs one day and then be fucking forgotten?


How come all these insights tend to disappear and go dormant only to return, greater in force and twice as hard because you realize you've had them before and you realize you drove them away out of the same reasons that everyone else does?


You're no different, I'm no different, we're all just small ones afraid of the dark waiting around to die and turn into flat images
POET IN THE JAR

In Hiding

When I'm reminded
I wonder how I survived
Why I survived
When old lines, old words
Decide to reveal themselves
After all their time in hiding
They're like stabbing knives
Reminding, reminding

How could it be possible to overcome
How did I endure, what was my motivation
When I had lost everything that meant something
When I had lost everything that was me

How could I not have seen it coming
How could I not have known
Was I really that naive
Was I really that blind
To think that I would be an exception
To think that you would be
To never imagine you leaving me

Without explanation, without reason, without sense
You left me with an aching hole,
Left me with decadence
Left me to die
Left it all to die

When I'm reminded

I wonder how I survived

Why I survived

When old lines, old words

Decide to reveal themselves

After all their time in hiding

They're like stabbing knives

Reminding, reminding

Self-preservation told me otherwise
Told me I had healed, and that aching hole had sealed
Stubborn self-preservation, telling me lies
And the link hasn't worked for years
But it can still fuel screams
It can still fuel tears

When did I make the decision to live
When did I decide that one day it would be worth it
One day I'd look back and be grateful I was still around
When will it be worth it
When will the pain truly subside
When will I stop panicking
Because I'm alive

When I'm reminded

I wonder how I survived

Why I survived

When old lines, old words

Decide to reveal themselves

After all their time in hiding

They're like stabbing knives

Reminding, reminding

It tears the hole up every time

With every word, with every line

And again it aches, and again I break

Every time I wonder how I survived

I thought the first cut was the deepest

That I'd only be left with scars inside

It was self-deceit, it was all a lie

Carefully told

I was never meant to suspect

It would worsen with time

I was never meant to realize

When I'm reminded

I wonder how I survived

Why I survived

When old lines, old words

Decide to reveal themselves

After all their time in hiding

They're like stabbing knives

Reminding, reminding

Do I really want to fall asleep

What if I dream your voice to life

What if I revive your words, your lines

I can't do it all over, I can't do it one more time

I've managed to block out all their meaning

I've managed to blind myself to their power

I can't lose them one more time,

I can't lose them again

I can't lose you again

Even if it's only in my dreams

Even if you're only conjured by me

Symbols & Signs

Aren't we too different to speak of this
Shouldn't I have known it wouldn't be meaningful
That only in my own mind does it make sense
Do the words and thoughts have any power
Only in my mind do they seem real and true
I shouldn't have come to you

Is this how it was meant to be
Will the poet always be lonely
Lacking understanding
Dead heads only nodding
Dead eyes that can't read
Between lines
Eyes that can't see symbols
Symbols and signs

You never shared my love for abstractions
In your world everything's for granted
Realizations about life and death
Aren't allowed to stray near you
Only in my mind do they seem real and true
I shouldn't have come to you

Is this how it was meant to be

Will the poet always be lonely

Lacking understanding

Dead heads only nodding

Dead eyes that can't read

Between lines

Eyes that can't see symbols

Symbols and signs

I don't make divine observations

Life isn't a starry sky to be analyzed

But I live for everything between those lights

Everything that can't be seen by our eyes

Everything that can be imagined

And at the same time is more real

And says more about you,

And about the world

Than anything

Is this how it was meant to be

Will the poet always be lonely

Lacking understanding

Dead heads only nodding

Dead eyes that can't read

Between lines

Eyes that can't see symbols

Symbols and signs

Life lines

Family Values

I think that everyone basically have a love-hate relationship to their close family. On one hand you love them to death, you grew up with them, you've shared the same jokes and lived under the same roof and have many mutual experiences and you know their behaviors and choices of words like the back of your hand. On the other hand it's not very common that everyone in the family shares the same interests, quite the opposite; and it's been said many times that your friends are the family you got to choose. And even though I love my family very much - it's still going to be somewhat of a relief to be around friends, to travel, to have a couple beers, to write and have coffees until the dead of the night and just not really give a shit about anything. Who's in favor? I am! That does kind of make me crave a coffee, I might just have some, hell, it's only 10 PM and hell, I don't start working tomorrow until 4.


Like my dear poet friend Roccari, I'm currently struggling with some writer's doubt and I'm not entirely sure how to deal with it. I've got the idea, the background and basic plot all thought out for the short story contribution I am making for the Metro 2033 short story contest; and still when I write on it, all I want to do is scrap it and start over (which violates the very writing tips I myself posted here not so long ago, oh, the irony), and still it never really feels as if I can get it the way I want it. I'm hoping that writing for all these contests will teach me a thing or two about letting a piece go and not overwork it anymore, that it might still be good enough to submit to a contest. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I either have to write it as a masterpiece right away, or I'm unworthy for any competition; which, of course, isn't a very nuanced image of actual reality. There are plenty of people who, for one, write mediocre pieces and win contests of the like with them; and secondly, there're plenty of people who don't feel the pressure to write a masterpiece or overwork it down to the last detail; but who sees the contest announcement, gets inspired, writes their piece and submits it. I'd like to be one of the latter people... or at least I'd like to have a similar attitude towards these kinds of contests. I think that a writer still always has to have the will and desire to improve, or they won't go anywhere. But there's a limit you reach when perfectionism only slows progress, perhaps even brings it to a halt.


POET IN THE SUPPOSEDLY EGOCENTRIC BUT ESSENTIALLY ONLY APPRECIATIVE JAR

Rainy, Sentimental Days

What do you say of a memory that you just can't be rid of? What do you do with it, when you've treated it in all sorts of ways and still it stays? Isn't it tiring that we can never entirely forget what's really better left forgotten? There is a belief some people have, that without your own particular path in life, without your own particular memories, you wouldn't be where you are today; and you would perhaps not appreciate the good if you never knew of the bad. But I'm not asking for redemption or complete bliss. I'm only asking that I could leave a part of my life that didn't go that well behind me, and let it be. I don't want sudden flashes, images, voices, sounds, that particular, special joke; those particular, special eyes; to attack me when I least expect. I simply wonder - would it be too much to ask to lock these memories up, store them somewhere safe; and only bring them out on rainy, sentimental days, when you conjure them by conscious effort. In my experience the answer's yes, that would be too much to ask. Seems that we humans are meant to be tormented by our past lives, regardless how well we live in the present. Or, which seems more likely perhaps, this is only the case for those like me, who tend to get too emotional over small things and who can't simply slap evil in the face and get on with their lives. And still I wouldn't change myself. Mostly because I spent too much trying to change, way back, in order to deal with these things; and it didn't work that time, and I doubt it would work now. I've come to the conclusion that over-emotional, over-thinking, over-sentimental people such as myself are deemed to be artists and that is that, story is over.

Any writer with self-respect has self-doubt. There's lots of that going around at the moment.
POET IN THE JAR

Towards Madness

I wonder why I, of everyone out there with the same dreams, would have my voice heard? I wonder why my lines should be heard, why my words should matter? I'm only one person, one who constantly thinks about things, thinks about life, thinks about death. I'm no chosen one. I don't have any special abilities. None of my thoughts are really unique. They've all been thought before, they've all been heard before, everything's been done before.

I'm the last one to deny I have a dream, and that the dream is to be recognized for my writing. To for once be able to look at something proudly and say, 'I wrote that' and 'I made that', and be renowned. Too many times lately I've thought I am writing for nobody's eyes. I'm writing for nothing but my own eyes, and who cares? Really? No one cares about anyone's eyes but their own. We are so quick to say we are misunderstood but none of us ever tried to understand others.

I will always be driven to write. Maybe one day I'll be rewarded for it. But more often than not, I ask myself why this should happen. Why I keep clinging on to the hope that someday, someone will pick up a book of mine, read it and have their world changed, have their world revealed. There are no little golden elfs to hand out riches and fame to the struggling artists. A struggle is all that it is, and still we can't keep ourselves from doing it, we can't keep ourselves from putting pen to paper. Is it naive or brave? Is it stupid or ambitious?

I've always said I write in order to deal with hardships in life, and it is true. I write to distance myself from thoughts about mortality and monsters under the bed. I write to get it out of my head and onto paper where it's safe. But what do you do when the writing isn't enough? What do you do, when all you do is write, all you do is pour and pour from yourself, and still you never dry up? 

I feel so lost, and confused. The more I write, the more my angst shows through. The more it seems like a game and a folly. What madness is this?

Why do I drive myself toward madness?

POET IN THE JAR