As For God

I can’t say for sure where my head is these days. I wrote a thing in 2017. I wrote a page a day for 365 days and ended up with a book – the journal of Sillyheart – a year in her life. When I met her I thought we’d only be spending a month together. The initial premise of the writing exercise proposed to me by a dear friend was to write a page a day for the month of January to get the creative juices flowing. It worked. I completed the month and I felt like a million bucks. One dreary Sunday I’m driving with my big sister in her mini-van along the back road to town for groceries and I’m rambling on like a crazy person about my meager accomplishment. She looks at me and said, “You did a month. Why not go all year? That’d be a book.” It socked me in the eyeballs. I took her suggestion to heart and kept going and just like that Sillyheart was my new best friend, my most important preoccupation. The more I wrote the thicker the stack of paper became. I experienced moments of sheer terror and intimidation by what I was doing. It was the largest piece of work I’d ever worked on and finished. Ever. A poem, easy. A short story, okay. But, a book? Man. What a rush. I wrote one small little piece in the middle but other than that I haven’t been able to write a word. I have a story knocking around in my head but I can’t get it on paper. I’ve tried – first person perspective, third person. It isn’t coming. I don’t want to force it so I’ve let it be. For now. I’ll try back again when my head is clear of cobwebs. I really want to write it though. I hope it doesn’t wander off and pick another writer to dictate.

I miss Sillyheart. I had a dream last night that I started the editing process. It might be her way of telling me to get off my sad sack and get back to work. I thought maybe distancing myself from the binder her life currently lives in would be good for me. I have come to the conclusion that distance isn’t what we need, it’s togetherness. I’m not really finished with her yet, I’m not supposed to be focusing on other stories because we still have miles to go. There are 400 plus pages to tackle and they aren’t going to edit themselves. Now, anyone who loves me will tell you I am no editor and I am brutally aware there are many many pages where I did not do my best work. The point was to get something down. To maintain the rhythm and routine. It was important to me to write even if it was a bunch of bloop. Anything can be fixed. It’s a big job but it has to be done. I’m more nervous about the edit than I was the actual writing. The bonus – Sillyheart entrusted me with a year of her life. I didn’t let her down. She has faith in me. I’ve lost a little of it in myself but the second I regain it, all edits go.  

If anyone has any words of wisdom or advice on editing, I’m all ears.

While I am waiting for my head to level and my life to stop veering sideways I wrote a poem. I don’t know if it’s anything special but it felt good to clack a little.

In propinquity,

Nic

***

As For God

As for God, you see he was

just too busy interpreting the

all the sounds and silence of

appearing and disappearing

            … meanwhile

I am left to my own devices

to eulogize the gray page

the space I can no longer fill.

It once was the busy intersection

of my humanity and the practice

of storytelling – it’s sudden stop

staged as a singular defiance …

if you want the cold hard truth

it was the eventual death of my father

that halted my life’s (un)important work.

How could I contend with a meaningful

existence in the wake of such an absence?

It’s a daunting task for anyone I suppose

crippling for those who are tasked to make

something out of thin air.

As for God, you see he was

too busy claiming my loved one to consider

the domino effect down here, the gray page

the head-buzzing astral angst dulling down

my thunderous heart.

I long for the acoustics of metaphorical

impulses, premature departures, episodic

hard joys, a glittering nocturnal view,

            subliminal motifs, in place of a rose

ostentatiously placed at the tomb of my sadness.

It all leaves too much time to interrogate the past

and little time for telling tales by heart.

            As for God, you see he paid no mind to

it all because he told me once, maybe in a dream,

he’d never give me more than I could handle.

            This gray page is proof he is capable of

fiction too.