Hosanna

But he is one of those suffering writers, he says, a new face on an old couch in our sunny living room, and you say that you were, too, in your youth. There's a light laugh at the end of the sentence, everything is terribly pleasant when you think you are only writing adventure stories with heart.

But at the end of the night, when the bourbon has sunk to the bottom of the glass and you have looked up every shred of evidence at the world's brilliance against your pathetic normalcy, that familiar night sweeps in over your heart, drenches it in black. It whispers the same words you've heard since you first started hearing voices; it convinces you to hold your own head under water until the lungs give out and all these smiles you wrote were only kidding themselves. Maybe Sylvia suffered but she did so beautifully and all the while wrote furiously. The mirror on your bedroom door has twisted in the cold, your reflection looks like a fun house joke, it's appropriate.

The suffering is only beautiful in retrospect, is only poetic after success. You wonder when it's time to pull out the want ads. Wonder when it's time to pull the plug.

You know January wants to see you bleed dry.
You just haven't the work ethic to prove it wrong.