Read this. Please.

This is an experiment. I am not necessarily writing what I mean, because I don't know what I mean. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'M DOING. I just want to write and see what happens.

I once wrote a poem using one of those 'magnetic poety' sets. I only had about thirty words to choose from. It was about the sea. NOte: there was more text here, but I deleted it.

In the beginning, there was a girl who loved music and drama. She loved low, resonate notes that hung like fog above the ground, not the twinkling high notes that vanished as if they had never been. This was odd because she was a flautist. She wanted to play notes that didn't exist. No one understood that.

She should have played cello.

She performed a monologue that made people cry. 'This is all I want to do,' she thought to herself. 'I want to make emotion leak out of people.'

In the end, the music warbled away. The voice was replaced with black squiggles on a white sea. Or, perhaps the squiggles were really holes, burnt into the page. Spaces one can slip through.

and what is the other option? the imposter cried. and what are the choices? the misfit sighed.

i don't know she whispered. all i can do is keep tripping across the surface and hope i don't fall
through
the
crevices.

and if you do???

there is always another page lying beneath waiting to be read she said and hoped that it was true.

it is true, the misfit said. i have tried to find the end. i have searched for it in

ATWOODOCONNORRICHBARNESCOETZEETENNYSONSTRAUSSMALORY
CARMODYPLATOH.D.DICKENSSETHWILDEMACGUIRETOLSTOYFOWLES
and many other places but i have never reached the end.

it is therefore a reasonable hypothesis to assume that there isn't one, the imposter assented. a never ending DNA strand

it's true, she exclaimed. i can type and type and type and type meaningless squiggles and the pages never end. a fresh one is always waiting even if all i write is

that is because the page doesn't judge you, the misfit smiled, relieved. isn't that nice? the page is open to anything. anything!

mmm, it's the reader you have to worry about, the imposter grumbled. the reader judges every word. and even when they don't know what you mean they assume that they do. they interrogate you, hunt for misplaced squiggles, criticise your shape, doodle on margins and well, all sorts of awful things really.

but worst of all, the misfit whispered, worse even than the interrogating and the hunting and the criticising and the doodling is

is-s wh-what, she stammered.

worst of all is when they walk past without ever glancing at the page. that is the worst thing.

oh. yes.


See? I told you so. Even when I don't mean them to the black squiggles still take on shapes, definitions. Even if I fight against it. But perhaps I don't fight hard enough. I want to be understood. Even when I'm trying to be elusive I still leave enough clues strewn across the space for people to put a picture together. Even if it clashes with the picture in my head. There are still common brushstrokes, similar tints. Tricky, isn't it?

yes, said the misfit