This Writer's Process
For the "Things You Can't Speak Out Loud" Challenge
It's here, the urge to compose
something that is mine, that feels
like mine. But how can I be sure
any of my thoughts have a strain—
a strained bit—of originality when I've
consumed so much media throughout
my life? Is the poem I want to write
about how nostalgia is like a species
of cordyceps to which I am susceptible
my own idea? This analogy where I am the infected insect
and my writing the spores spun out and away
from my fungus-stalk hands
feels too clever to be mine.
Even though Google assures me
my phrasing brings nothing to its
database mind, is that enough
to qualify originality, ownership?
I remember sitting on the floor
of my cousin's living room years ago,
when I was still a child and more
of the people I love were alive,
and looking at one of her old biology textbooks
only to see a photo of an ant with cordyceps
worming from its head. Is that
proof that this concept could have sprouted
from me? Or am I misremembering?
And if it is mine, am I not being arrogant
to think it—myself—clever, to consider pursuing it
and publishing it? If I was clever, surely I could
trust my mind. I don't. And, thus, my final draft:
About the Creator
Hannah E. Aaron
Hello! I'm mostly a writer of fiction and poetry that tend to involve nature, family, and the idea of growth at the moment. Otherwise, I'm a reader, crafter, and full-time procrastinator!
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Comments (1)
It could all be bricolage or automatic writing of some kind, I suppose; this is as modest as it is insightful and slyly self-reflexive.