she’s a writer
not like i’m a writer
she chips away at the marble and you can tell there is a deft hand at work
maybe just a little untrained
maybe a little rough around the edges but the basics are there
one day she will write a masterpiece

me though
well
not me
i don’t have the finesse necessary
my block of marble is just a pile of chip
a cloud of dust
i could spend the rest of my life and never carve anything from that damned stone

but
i write as well
not as well
but i write
sort of

i imagine it is like spending your whole life painting
then
one day stumbling into a museum
suddenly the world you lived in
slept in
dreamt in
thought you knew

well

you were just a monkey painting the walls of a cave in the amazon

so you go home and shred the canvas stacked nearly to the ceiling of your wondrous design

but you still got that itch
you know

that whatever the hell they call it

just burning up your guts

so you start over
trying to mimic the art you saw

and you paint flowers
fruits
maybe try and paint yourself like rockwell
but it ends up looking more like escher

and not in that surrealistic way

like escher by way of third grader

that’s how i feel

she’s writing like homer

i’m writing like homer simpson

so yeah

she’s a writer
and i am too

i’m just not very good at I
so i supplement my lack of temperament
with a steady supply of laudnum daydreams

cracking open thermometers
drinking the mercury like pixie sticks

maybe in madness they will find genius

the lonely bard sitting alone huffing glue and tapping out odes like a monkey painting a cave wall with his own shit

there’s a market for that somewhere

some fool will translate it into japanese and then back into english and a sudden nuance will appear

like an acid dip bringing out the patterns in steel

i need to learn japanese

maybe then she’ll read my lines
something will click
she’ll see the intent behind the sloppy words
pack her bags and shack up with me
we’ll make love in the sunset
write together until the sun rises

and the world will be a better place

doubtful

but give a man his dream

his hands covered in shit
as it drips off the walls
splats on the floor
all while he cracks open another box of thermometers
looking for a reason to keep moving on

i’m mercury
deadly to the touch
she’s mercurial
impossible to touch

but i could be a matisse
just without the talent