I try to write in present prose, but poetry comes from confusion.

It's hard to write the confusion. Words, structured on the page, are ordered and organized along a path. There is supposed to be clarity. A beginning. An end.

When I am confused or uncertain they become poetry, open-ended, alarming, confusing. (Never mind difficult to read.)

I told myself this isn't a poetry blog. I'd write those thoughts clearly in prose, thank you. No need to make my writing more obscure than necessary.

"Think of the readers!!!" my mind whispers, "People need clarity!"

Well, I admire organized thought in others, possibly because I don't usually create such structures, so it offers a nice contrast to the ever-changing, wild, and free landscape that is my internal world. However, I always end up back in the wilderness after exploring the straight-lined passages. Since my words turn to the poetic even when I'm calm and collected, maybe I'll just go with it.

Continuously structured writing is limiting for me, I think. The ideal has a good motivation and would work for someone who processes life that way, but desire doesn't alter this particular reality ... and ordering words as prose when I'm crying inside simply doesn't happen.

As much as I admire logic and sense and order ... I literally have to create a numbered list to even come close. It works. I don't mind the process. However, as it is constructed ... I sometimes fail to verbally reflect the struggle. Who I actually am loses to the idea of who I could be.

And since this is my life story made transparent ... it seems fake.

It makes me look stronger than I am. More aware. More confident.

And so, if you happened to compare yourself to me (Please no!!!) you might think "I wish I could be like her," when I'm over here thinking the very same thing about this person I have projected into the web. I wish I could be like her, too.

This is why it feels good to write through her, I think. She knows the things I'm still figuring out. She makes statements about thoughts that are still questions for me. She's a facade ... although she is still truth. She is an anticipation ... a hope ... a desire to be ... a recognition of process.

She is a glimpse of what could be, though maybe not the only possibility or even the best one.

Right now?

Right this very minute ... I'm fighting with the universe and losing.

Oh, I'm not losing anything valuable. (I hope.) I have this sense that I'm being given something I didn't even know existed ... something too beautiful to comprehend yet, because I haven't seen it.

But I'm over here hanging onto the things I already understand to be treasures ... and I don't want to let go of this one, because what I receive might not be better.

I can't hold both. I can't keep the certainty and also have this element that is too large to contain.... It seems likely that it will always be a matter of experiencing the adventure and living the changes without any promise that life will be comfortable.

I've got my mental sailboat, carefully constructed to sail the pond out back, and I'm on the gangplank of a ship heading out into the ocean. My little boat can't keep up with a real adventure, but I'm looking back at the pond and wondering whether I'm insane to let it go. It looks nice and safe back there, surrounded by walls and limits and unseen horizons.

Do I need more than a patch of blue sky?

Yeah. That wasn't really a question. The ship left the dock a long time ago, and my little sailboat has long dropped out of sight. I'll post the poetry, too.