Crack Open a Book (and Maybe Me)

Don’t touch grass; crack open a book like a cold beer!

Dear Readers,

Your author arrives today with trepidation—so much so that she abandons the first person, hoping distance might blur her outline.

Once, this was a poetry blog. At least an attempt. Anyone—from a child to a seasoned scholar—could pluck one of those crude, earnest posts and see them plainly for what they were: poetic attempts. Poorly executed, yes, but heartfelt. Over time the writing improved—like finally seeing the horse in the cloud once someone points it out. For years she pointed and insisted, “Poem!” Only recently would others nod.

Then, in the last year, something unraveled. But at least fiction felt adjacent to literature—still fumbling, but at least aimed at a horizon. A faint theme, a generous audience, a sense of direction. Until the whole enterprise turned on her. Like a cell dividing too fast, that direction metastasized into something else. Suddenly: personal essays (the horror—please forgive her!) splashing onto the page. A quick, disquieting devolution.

She fights with herself.

“No one wants to read about your stupid, co-dependent caregiving to cats,” she scolds. “They do! They do! Look at the stats!” she shouts back.

A confession: she saw the stats once by accident and swore she wouldn’t look again. Told herself it was all bots, or one poor soul clicking too many times by mistake. She promised she wouldn’t check. And then she checked every day.

Now she feels like a naked woman behind one-way glass, the world passing by on the other side while a small glowing ticker counts the gentlemen who linger. Quick—she’s fainting. Push a chocolate through the slot! Dickinson wrote, “Publication is the auction of the mind,” and God, does she feel up for sale.

She returns to the blog determined to write something meaningful, something not about herself. Anything not self-centered. And another diary entry floods out. She tries to stop it; she cannot. She has lost the plot.

Poem or short story or diary drivel… eight hundred and thirty-five posts later, she wonders: isn’t this compulsion to create unnerving? She can’t fathom how she writes so much, or how anyone could possibly find time to read it. A simpler answer would be: they don’t. But the tugging, creeping fear—what if they do?

Deleting it all is an option, of course. But God—over a decade of work down the drain! And the stats spark hope. Each past post viewed unexpectedly is a little gift of herself. “Look at this poem from 2022,” she whispers. She doesn’t remember writing it. But you, dear reader—you did. Unless you’re a bot. In which case: thank you, bot. She devours these forgotten versions of herself like a dessert made of desserts eaten in the dark. This must be what Dickinson felt, opening her bureau drawer and finding yet more small, secret selves she wasn’t sure anyone should see.

God! Listen to her now! Are you rolling your eyes yet? She is no Dickinson! This is a crappy little internet blog! Still, the writing simply keeps pouring out.

Maybe you like it—maybe you’re the sort of sick, twisted little thing who would. Are you? Do you like this? Do you like seeing her so vulnerable and her not knowing a thing?

Is she just a little girl curtsying too deeply, showing the entire village her bloomers? Are you a voyeur?—but then, if you are one, so is she. She grew up on OpenDiary and LiveJournal, peering into strangers’ lives. She still loves historical diaries. She would love to read yours too.

And so she retreats now to read a book—something good, like a president’s memoir—anything not about her.

Maybe she could shut up long enough to write something good…
Dear God, Reader—let’s not get carried away.