I must write again

In the afternoon I got home and dropped into a comatose sleep
And woke up like a fish yanked onto the pier’s concrete
All dry-mouthed and only half-sure of my own existence.
The exhaustion could not be shaken, nor could my thirst
Be quenched after gulping down three mugs of water
And I sat in the room distorted by the darkness of dusk,
Trying to inhabit my limbs again. From the violet-tinged shadows
Surfaced a singular obsessive thought — it is time to write again.

Words snag upon my mind as though the seasons of silence had
Finally passed and a gentle light had diffused into the air
Asking to be seen again. I must write again! Not with
Discipline, which I previously hailed as the step over and
Through writer’s blocks, that imposed the unwilling
Knitting of words together into phrases into poems into stories
With none of my heart, only busy fingers finding familiar tropes.
No more writing goals or long-term projects doomed by
How mercurial even my own interests are in my own work. Discipline is reserved for the clearing of emails
Which I had let pile up, tasks that I must gripe about as I do them,
No longer for the finer, self-serving craft of word-smithing
To beg the world for understanding.

I must write, I am sure now, because the words have come
Back to me like migratory birds passing by their winter homes,

And because I am sure it would lift me out of the swamp
Of chronic fatigue that had filled my pockets and pinned me
Down. The friction of mechanical living, working, and
Hardening myself body and soul with routine, had fooled
Me into believing my own resilience. No one around me
Believes that in reality I have a peach for a heart under
Iron-clad independence, so they lean upon me
Like bus railings for their own temporary comforts,
And test only my strength at the pit after cutting through
The soft flesh of weakness that have ripened with neglect.

It is time I write again so I can honour my own sensitivity
And how easily I get hurt. I must now name the tears and
Fears that cannot be disciplined away. Such is the practice
Of being human, to give voice to my fallibility, to scrub
Away the scales that have hardened in my mutation
Towards the tireless sea monster in people’s impressions, to
Prune the tree for people to recognise the fruits and not
Just the bark and rough trunks. I simply
Must write again.