You asked me for my why, and I wrote it down all at once
\nIt took me a minute or two to scratch out the stuff of it.
\nBut then you asked me, \u201cWhy this why? Why is it this?\u201d
\nAnd I sat down another day and wrote it all down again,
\nWith other words, other thoughts, other dreamful reasons.<\/p>\n
And once more you asked me to find it, find my why, dig.
\nI shook my head to another day and slept on it some more,
\nMy night terrorized by questions and visions born in sweat.
\nTackling the demons once more, I penned papers on papers,
\nI tore at ink and line and wrote my why and why not plus ten.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook, \u201c I said, \u201cHow much can I rip from my guts? How deep?\u201d
\nShe asked me why I ask, why not tell, why not the whole truth.
\nSo I laid it down, tore it up, scratched it out, pored hungry art
\nAnd spoke it to an empty screen with nothing on it but me.
\nI stuttered and blinked, twitched it out to those who\u2019d hear it.<\/p>\n
Then I pressed play and watched it, me speaking my story.
\nAnd my why tensed between my teeth, flexed in my arms,
\nTrapped in my shoulders and neck, eked out in strained tones,
\nLike a trumpeter\u2019s taut lips finding the sweet spot of wept wind
\nForced air, struggling to the notes, hit them at the right pitch.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, no, no, noooo! That\u2019s not it at all!\u201d I screamed at myself,
\nMy own image on the screen, speaking to no one at all,
\nInside my head, looking at me, at her, the one tossing words
\nCarelessly, aimlessly, trying so hard, not trying at all, not enough.
\nYou, I, we held back, kept it to ourselves, and gave up too little.<\/p>\n
So I went back to my pen and cursed the notebook\u2019s sheets,
\nClean lined and beckoning, and with tensile fingers curled,
\nAnticipation clawing at my bloodied brain, I wrote and wrote,
\nThe beginnings, hunger, anger, stubbornness, sorrowing quest
\nAnd tripping time\u2019s prison, my why written, I locked it up, keyless.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You asked me for my why, and I wrote it down all at once It took me a minute or two to scratch out the stuff of it. But then you asked me, \u201cWhy this why? Why is it this?\u201d And I sat down another…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,441],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem","category-poetry-prompt-responses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32611"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32615,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32611\/revisions\/32615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}