I write

Because I am a slave to my muse

She who chides me

When my mind

Lingers in the land of Mundania

For longer than a few

Meager seconds.

I write

Because I need to feed

Her cruel desire for creation.

Rare is the moment

When I slump back in my chair,

Exhausted by the effort of alchemy,

Of pouring forth emotion into inkwells,

Then drawing up that murky fluid and

Sculpting with it

A scene of my mind's tortured imaginings.

Rare, I say,

Is that moment

When I look to my tormenting love

And see her cool demeanor

Replaced by a

Countenance of contentment,

A slight second of satisfaction.

More frequent are the beratings of

"Not good enough."

"How nauseatingly saccharine."

"Why do you even bother trying?

If you cannot flay your flesh to the bone

And well nigh bleed

Your heart's blood onto these pages...

Then why subject the world to

Your maddeningly morose meanderings?

It is better to say nothing

Than to speak in bits of infuriating drivel

To those who would judge you,

Drag you screaming to Golgotha,

And pierce your flesh with stinging nettles...

It is better for you,

Preening priestess,

Pretending poetess,

To be silent."

I could clamp my hands over my ears--

She will penetrate that obstruction

With a whisper.

I could hide in the deepest recesses of my closet--

She will be back further still

Reaching icy arms for me.

I could join the monsters under my bed--

And there she would be

Smiling stretched lips over

Perfect pearls of pain.

No, I cannot escape her.

It serves me better

To stay,

Enduring every agony she can call into my being.

It is better to be

Her slave than to risk

The lifelessness of escape.

For without her,

Without her relentless desire

For the perfect page,

What would I be?

A lost soul amongst millions,

Driven mad by the musings of my mind,

The overflow of blood in my body.

No...

It is better

To bleed for her pleasure

Than to waste away

From want of her glaring gaze.

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