in the first place

I take a pad without any clear idea of what I'll write. That's the sheer joy of it sometimes, having the pen and the sheer blank possibility before you. I conjure worlds, inverted or magnificent. I imagine communities without a spoken word or too much sweat. Or endowed with too much color.

I construct her or several versions of her. Or not her at all. And how her eyes are. How they would be. How they could be. How they would have to be if I didn't need them on me too much. How the lashes could be too black or devoid of color. Or hold too much sweat to hope for any vision.

Then I take the pen and make shit out of pad that was perfectly beautiful without my muddy ink in the first place.