Day 23 – Where Poems Really Come From

Naked in my bathroom,
water dripping from the ends of my hair.
The boiler gurgles as the tank refills
and the words in my head tumble over each other.

‘Write us!’ they screech.
‘You know you want to!’
I bat them away.

Why can I write nothing solid and finished?
Why do I care for these meddlesome words
which cluster around me like hungry gnats?

‘Write!’ say my friends.
‘You know you want to!
We know you can do it!
We all want to read it!’

So I write and I write,
but how can I judge it?
The things that I write are just worms in my mind
eating their way through my head to the surface
until they emerge at the awkwardest moments.

So what do I do?
Grab a towel and a coffee,
sit down at the keyboard,
and write the bastards out into daylight.

Linda Rushby 23 April 2020