I don’t suffer from the brilliant people’s writer’s block.

I get these swarms of self-hatred that swamp me and create an inactive Tonka toy, ready to rust and to be kicked.

Kicked so there are dents that won’t be repaired ever and whose cracks will submit themselves to the onslaught of rust fueled by the beads of moisture tickling up from the Jersey Street sandbox that never had the privilege of sun.

The loneliness in the dirty sand.

Writing is my therapy, but fear dunks my horrible lungs – What a silly fool.

A toad who can’t stand water.

I’d laugh, but I’m sick of being sick.

Exercise is therapy also, but do I use it?

I know myself as a bucket of shit, pardon the phrase.

Meditation, yes, you have it – therapeutic, but the good people, the beautiful people, the loving people suggest 20 minutes, and my storms conquer me and my mind will not crawl in the cotton for longer than three and a half minutes, five when stretched to my maximum after a long, tortuous day, spent as a salmon in a brown pond with no outlets.

Today at lunch, I saw three people in a continuous slideshow of three side by side by side events.

For a flash, I think I can write, but it lasts only seconds.

At the end of my drinking career, I hated being drunk for almost every moment of the ten to twelve hours per night, Every Night, but there were still those few seconds of each night that crawled gently around my collar and that felt okay like a smooth hug from someone who can save you, that felt like a solution to all of my problems.

I perpetuated the myth of solution into dark ages because I hated being sober so very strongly.

Now, I like my sobriety, but the solution is spoiled milk and miles away on a dry highway below sea level, and I can’t write a silly, shitty little poem about three humans who arrived in three sudden scenes, like flashes from god.

A gift smashes my brain with light and I can’t speak.

For a moment, I knew I could scream the loudest beauty at the walls of the world, but my brain locks as a broken chain on a bicycle and it hates me.

Yes, writing is therapeutic, so I did this little essay. I share it with you because I must let it go.

Tomorrow, I will write a poem.

It will be brilliant
and I won’t
throw it away
because right
when it is complete,
I’ll shut off my brain,
and I’ll sit still,
trying not to worry about how
I seem to be a black hole
in this lifetime, hanging
on those thin threads
that won’t leave
the new pants
I had worn into
the battles
of the Monday workplace.