a poem about the creative process

The paper is where my creativity goes to die

Like the dying carcass of a newly swatted fly,

Like the fluid of a paint becoming rigid when it dries,

Like an addict coming down from his ecstatic high,

Like a baby which doesn't quite understand so it cries,

Like the difference between the truth and our many unlies,

Like surrendering to authority to try and get by.

When I see the process beginning I give up and sigh,

It uses me as a medium rather uncaring of my agency

To express itself without a care for human decency

But when It's finished it's not quite it

What I just wrote seems full of shit.

Not a self deprecative false modesty

But rather a recognition of the absolute's beauty.

And rather confounding nature of the expression of pure potentiality.

And maybe this is how it is meant to be.

Everyday lexicon is too unfree.

Metaphors wrapped in infinite chains of self reference

Trying to grasp (at) the sea in a jug

To take some home to quench our thirst

But our sweaty hands leave it untouched.

Expression refines, and makes the flux come to a halt

But it leaves us thirsty and trying to drink salt.