That quote about insanity
Something about doing the same thing over and over and over and over and over…
There are days that I worry my writing sounds too much the same. That my voice has become this carbon copy I transfer from sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph until it all blurs together into one, incoherent monotony.
“Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence– whether much that is glorious– whether all that is profound– does not spring from disease of thought– from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.”
So I resort to writing from prompts. I force myself to change style and tone and sentence length. But what I find again and again, without fail, is my writing resorts to what is comfortable, whether or not I’m trying to change it.
I can’t say if this is a good or bad thing. Honestly. What it is, is how I write. The sudden switch from prose to poetry wasn’t so much a shift than a natural progression. And the rhythm and pace of my writing is what makes it apt for poetry.
The consideration I need to make, and maybe what all writers should really consider, is what we are saying. Maybe what draws the monotony is not the tone or style or medium of my writing - it is rather the topic.
Trauma for me is a conversation piece. It is something familiar and easy to write about. In this way, it has become normalized, steady ground instead of something to shift our ways of thinking. Which is what is really damaging to my writing, not my style or voice or sentence structure.
So maybe this is a challenge to myself, but I hope it is to everybody else - don’t write for the sake of writing something beautiful. A beautiful something can make us feel, but it’s not memorable if it’s not impactful. So write something beautiful - but think about what you’re trying to say and use your language to make that impact. Or whatever.
I’ve never been certain about the casualties of
Grief,
About the subtleties that bloom from
Blocking out years, the way it
Caves into your skin, into
The fear of speaking your sins
Out loud. There is confessional in the
Pleasure of clean sheets and empty beds, or
Shame in having lived and loved and
Remembered. I readily empty
My lungs in favor of fear. I
Choose to run away because it’s
Easier than explaining the
Purpling of my fingertips like
Blossoms that have forgotten
Springtime. There are greater
Losses. There are battlefields drenched in
People praying, in the vile cruelty of
Blasphemed ruin. Of pelvic bones
Broken between finger and
Thumb. There are griefs greater than
The space between my heart and my
Mouth, than the miles of skin between
Here and heaven.
