A vault packed with old paper is under my bed. Years ago, when I was even younger, I wrote terrible poems that now fill that box. The more they rhymed, the worse they were. I scratched the paper in this way whenever I felt sad or hopeless. Nobody ever read them, including me. Each served its purpose for a moment and was then buried.
I didn't care that I was a mediocre writer. My little poems were beautiful because they were sincere. Honest creativity is worthy regardless of skill.
I'm still compelled to write lines sometimes. They're still terrible messes of stumbling verse.
While I was sitting in the hospital beside my dead grandfather, I wrote this:
The little plate
is forming under
pressure
with numbers' curves
to be fastened, and
complete
something soon unspeakable
for everyone.
That little plate
calculating the dreadful function
to settle inevitable
heartache,
a redundant instrument of reminder
for something that cannot be forgotten,
to be bolted to the loving and cold
reality.
