Poetry On the margins of the Second Draft #2

Aged open book with handwritten poetry and ink splatters, titled “On the Margins of the Second Draft,” with illustrations of a raven and a black cat beside poetic notes.

I have wanted to do this for a while—try something like hybrid writing and mix poetry with reflections on the process itself. Sometimes it’s strange, as my mind tends to get inspired by lines from my old work, and then I write something new. The last Margins came to life in the same way. I read an old poem and then got the idea to add to it.

While the emotions in my poetry may sometimes come from real things in life, I have this unusual process of abstraction and a very overactive imagination, which makes even my reflections a product of it.

Fragmentation of the mind

This is not poetry—
this is the mess around it…

a girl trying to write,
getting distracted by her own thoughts…

staring at the empty screen,
taking a sip of coffee,
scrolling through social media…

or something like that.

How much more poetry can I write before my fingers run dry?

If it’s supposed to sound poetic…
it should be a pen, not fingers…

Last time I tried to write a poem with a pen,
it exploded,
and the paper was covered in ink.

umm…

Do fingers even run dry?
Perhaps thoughts can run dry.

What is it like being a poet, after all—
or a writer?

Last week, I wrote one line:

He touched me with his hands tied behind his back.

I stared at this line for two hours.
Scrapped it.
Wrote it again.
Panicked quietly at the thought
that nothing else would come.

Another hour passed.

Then I wrote it differently—
and somehow, in fifteen minutes,
I birthed a poem-like creature
about a bird instead.

pspspsps: it was for a six-sentence corner on my blog—you can read it here.

What else can I turn people—or my imaginary friends—into?

How many more creatures can you be—
a giraffe,
a bug,
or do you prefer to remain undefined?

If, hypothetically speaking, a man were to be a giraffe,
how would I even put it into words?

He reached for me
like a giraffe reaches
for the leaves at the top of a tree.

Googles what giraffes eat.
Acacia?

Seems like he fancies acacia…

But acacia turns bitter the longer you eat it…

Uhh—
what about a bug?

There is a flesh-eating bug in my ribcage.

It keeps gnawing at my insides,
begging for a way out.

That is how droplets of my being
become art:

dripping from a wound—

drip, drip—

one word after another.

Or out of my fingers—
my fingers apparently have a lot to say these days.

The words just keep appearing
on the screen,
one after another.

But what they are saying
is up to interpretation.

I think poetry is the art
of putting feelings into something—
something non-intrusive,
quiet—

and somehow,
every person who reads
reads according to their own
understanding

How many times have I read The Night in Lisbon,
only to understand it differently
every single time?

PS:

I love this book.

Poetry—

Today I tried to catch a firefly that came to me
in the state between sleep and consciousness.
It was whispering me a poem,
but it seemed to be in a distant, foreign tongue,
and so it just…

yeeted away when I wanted to jot it down.

—or an afterthought…

Yesterday, while falling asleep,
I thought I made up something genius
in my head.

In the morning, however—

it was gone.

Rude firefly.
It flew away with my Pulitzer piece…


I have also been reading a lot of Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath lately…

I remember being told, as a young girl, by my literature teacher:
“If you want to be a writer—
read a lot.”

So I just read,
and read,
and read,
and read.

But by soul, I was a writer already.

I read
because I wanted to write.

Not the other way around...

Antique-style open book illustration with poetry theme, showing a black cat, candle, and skulls beside the message “Thank you for finding these words and staying for awhile.”

There's more of my work:

If you like short stories I have them scooped up into one category (including the six-sentence stories).

The Nervous Poet at the SSC&B can be followed here.

There is also poetry.

More personal entries can be found at the Blog.

There's also the IT studies blog in Estonian and "Chaos in Spring" on YouTubeSpotify and other streaming services.

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This blog is hosted on DreamHost (I myself use DreamPress).

*This is an Affiliate link — I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.*