Do not wait for validation

the language at war with currency.

Feast instead on self possession

& poems:

The stories of the ones before us,

The dreams of our descendants.

Narratives that remind our hearts how to soar.

 

No one is coming to proclaim your talent rough or refined.

You are your only true nemesis,

a house divided against its productivity.

 

Do not wait to write.

Not for love, nor money;

Not for attention nor glory.

 

Do it to heal &

because you are compulsive &

because the story claws at your attention &

because those words weigh down the gut,

& wring them from your core

until you can’t do anything but devour experience

or starve for want of stories

to give your language life.

 

Live deeply in moments that give to you

the broadest horizons

& make for yourself worlds that

delicately remind us

how powerful it is to reach beyond the limits we

dream for ourselves while we are yet

never sleeping.

 

Finally,

Forget this advice

& anyone else’s.

You are the best author of your destiny,

after all.

This, too,

is noise you’ve read

to keep from writing.

 

Genuflect only at the altar of creation.

 

Not a single thing

will ever match the importance of

your devotion.

4.29.14