"You think you can't write....

...but the truth is, you can't tell. the problem is, no one likes a snitch." ~betsy lerner

so, i'm writing a book.

it's fun, and also very weird. i've written two other ones, both were for college and back then in the face of institution the facts were that i never really gave a fluck. which means i've got in my catalouge one memoir from community college (responsible, simultaneous to a guy who used to drive a red chevy truck and broke my heart, for my very impulsive choice to go to washington college and Write--o love, o sacred music, o one who hears those bells and cries and cries and draws sweet meaning by and by.) that memoir was a virtual tell all of suburban funk and foolery in the eyes of a just barely finished teenager, one who by all definitions partied down and clearly was armed with the arrogance of honesty that a young one without knowledge intuitively calls upon. i had NO inhibitions and for the purpose it served me well. the second was fiction, was my thesis at wac, a novella written a year in to my sobriety and full with the demons and pain of addiction and most particularly the loss of my good friend and homie fannon to the lifestyle. my advisor back then just kept saying how it was very raw it was.

it was, those wounds were fresh and beaming as gold.

it's been seven years since then, almost eight if you count the fall that i first gave vision to my advisor of that fiction. lately i keep thinking about a quote i read by salinger, back when i used to teach in the jail. "there will be a story you want to tell for no better reason than because it matters to you more than any other. you'll stop looking over your shoulder to make sure you're keeping everyone happy, and you'll simply write what's real and true...one day a long time from now you'll cease to care anymore whom you please or what anybody has to say to about you. that's when you'll finally produce the work you're capable of."

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

i've been locked-up, put-out, broke-up, raving-mad contemptously sad a wise crazee earth womyn lost a hella bunch angry as a wasp and at times sharp as hell. i've made and kept and also lost some phenomenal fucking friends. i've run around in circles where i've actually been known as "spiritual kel". i mean, cmon. when it finally comes down to telling the truth, the real truth is there's not a damn thing you can do to keep your soul from practically forcing it all the way out...

for a person like me in fact, it's the only way to make it through

my friend lara once wrote this excellent piece about how just a few moments of writing after a self-imposed dry spell and she can actually feel her muscles melt loose away from her bones. now, that's it, isn't it? that's fine, fine showing and that for me is just the way it is.

which DOESN'T make it easy, not at all. it just proves my point about how some of us, no matter what, are at the end of the day simply compelled by the Call. and should we refuse it, take no note of that inner longing or worse work to deny our most divine, most sacred hunger? well i know, this i know for certain: there is no misery more severe.

so. tell the truth tell the truth tell the truth.

i will flesh out my experiences now, or shall continue. shall flesh out the Me i hold most dear...

what i'm listening to now, cuz i woke up with it playing in my head:
dylan's ring them bells