The Lack of Words

It is the lack of words that frightens me.
All those years of transformative experiences
that I left to the capriciousness of memory.
If I live to be 80+, this would be the halfway point
of my life, the point at which I began writing.
So many biographical bits exist about writers
who journaled incessantly, who scribbled and
jotted ideas and impressions on bits of paper
from a young age, developing and deepening
to the point of producing literary fireworks.
This kind of concreteness would have scared
the living daylights out of my deeply insecure
younger self.  Better to forget, to hide, to pretend
I am something different than what I am,
an embarrassing squiggle of a shaky flake,
unable to open myself to scrutiny of any kind.


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