A Pause

So I was reading this article (which is better than anything I could every write, so you should totally go read it) and thinking about writing and how the greatest thing anyone’s ever said about my work was someone who read my poem and said, “this is life here.”

And it flattened me

to think that I’d caught something. I wasn’t even sure what I was trying to catch, but I caught it. If I somehow write something that makes someone else think that those are the words they were trying to say, then I’ve done my job. Because I’m not trying to write me. I know myself, and I’m not all that interesting. I’m trying to write you. I'm trying to write this whole beautiful, messy world beyond the boundaries of me and all I ask is to hold it for a moment before I let it go.