the secret tunnel from fear to art

i’m about to hit publish, but … i can’t.

i’m in love. i’m elated and feeling vast and calm as sunrise and i can’t think straight anymore and i’m writing poems. they’re good too.

so what to do? i’m an artist. i don’t fix broken bones, i don’t build houses. all i got is my guts splashed across the page. that’s my job. to be naked in a public way.

and usually, that’s fine.

and today i just can’t hit that publish button.

my insides are screaming : no!

it’s too vulnerable! too recent!

it’s too precious!

and then i think : yes but.

what if ts eliot and rumi just crossed their arms and sat on their love poems. what then.

that probably means we’re hitting some good stuff.

so i walk across the flagstones and come to sit with the curled up hedgehog of No.

“hey love. i’m with you. i’m listening. what do you need?”

and after a couple days… a muffled whisper comes from the coat of spikes.

“this is a deeply sacred space.

i need intimacy and presence to share it.”

so i’ve come to the conclusion it’s time to publish my poems.

after all, they’re all for you, not for me. (perhaps. mostly? sometimes).

i love the idea of them slipped into your backpacks, alighting on your best mate’s bookshelf for christmas, instead of being confined to dem screens.

can you smell that paper? your fingers turning the pages, cover spread out on a patch of wildflowers by a lake? chocolate stains and maybe a faded postcard to keep your page… aaaah, i’m excited already.

and!

and then i can smuggle the recent ones in a fragrant bouquet of others. ta-da!

hedgehog pokes out its nose and uncurls with a shy smile.

after i decided this i remembered a story about neil gaiman and amanda palmer. he had something he wanted to say to her…. and kind of wrote a whole book, in the process of articulating that one thing.

clever hedgehog.

blessed be the soft belly of our spiky nature.

thanks for the ride into your secret tunnels.