Hemingways

You should just quit, he says, empty your bank accounts and run yourself into the ground and then, then you will write.

The Chelsea bar fills up, slowly. Early Friday night and it's on both your train lines: you have such a limited amount of time and want to savor the moment. I could have sat along that glossy wooden bar until closing.

He's right, of course. I have been there before. In the gut-wrenching sludge of poverty, finding the words sing better in misery. When you're already off the edge of the cliff and racing head-first toward the bottom, you have nothing left to lose, no time to worry about anything but pulling out of your innards every last word you could possibly have left to leave.

November rolls over your brow like a wet blanket. You shed the last frail dreams of summer, the last vestiges of hope and reckless abandon.

Stand at the precipice and shrug.