Posted on by Allison Marie Conway

You Probably Shouldn’t

Do you ever cringe when you’re writing a thing because it cuts so close to the bone? Too close, maybe, if that means anything at all? If you don’t, how do you know you are writing what wants to be written? If you can’t feel it, aren’t you dead? Aren’t the words? Write about that then. Crawl into the places inside which are riddled with emptiness, words chattering around like so many petrified teeth.

Just please don’t write the stale shit, the leftover stuff passed down or along from other people who don’t have a clue what they are talking about or why any of it matters. Just run from them, run away as far and as fast as possible. We don’t need you to save us but we do need you to offer us a way out, or through, or under these days of nothingness which cling to our skin.

I wake before dawn as I always do. My mind hovers above my body and I watch as I swallow the water which chases the pill. I watch as I stand and then I sink back into myself and move into the reality I will make passes at all day but never commit to. The sky outside my window is electric pinks and crimson reds along the horizon. You can taste it, it’s so ripe with the bursting of poetic juices. They say it shouldn’t be, of course. Say it’s all lit up with orange colors because of the fires raging on the other side of the country.

If it’s beautiful, you probably shouldn’t. If it’s too good, it isn’t true. If it feels delicious don’t you fucking dare.

She writes about death in a way that intrigues me. I follow her on social media and wish the platform didn’t tell all my ‘friends’ about it all on its own. So fucking creepy. There’s no privacy anymore but we try to build invisible walls, erect some kind of boundaries, for what any of it’s worth. All the while the algorithms penetrate and probe us. What is more profitable than pretty young girls obsessed with sex and death.

What is pricier than the soul of someone who doesn’t want to be bought.

As I settle in with coffee and blankets, laptop screen blinking in the pale morning light like a sleepy eyelid, I think about words and what they mean to people who truly adore them. How tragic it must be for those who live their entire lives and are never gutted by poetry.

Everything is everything and nothing seems sacred anymore except to the very few among us who can see all the way into the naked eye of the truth as it was since the beginning.

Where are they now and how do we find each other.

I gaze out over the tree tops as the sun ascends in her lonely blue heaven. Wild geese crying out overhead, clear and plain against the billowed sky.

31 Replies to “You Probably Shouldn’t”

  1. Moments pass without much care for how each of them takes a lot away from us. Sure by taking away of what is room was made for what will be. It’s crazy how instead of liberation we are even more confined to our cages for social media turns out to be more of a judgment tool than an exciting map for new discoveries and experiences. To write from the heart is actually thrown upon unless it resembles a well established and accepted template. It’s infuriating to see how similar or actually the same a lot of so called new writings or other creations are. It’s even crazier how a lot of authors don’t even realize that they are nothing more than a copy machine that feeds the insatiable “online” universe. It’s beyond cringeworthy. Perhaps the worst are those who know what they do and very much feel the cringe, however, they decide to betray their minds, souls, and hearts, all in the name of climbing the infinite mountain of popularity. Ah, it’s actually fucked up because I’ve done those things myself and sometimes catch myself doing them still. All that being said, I am very grateful that originality is still alive and well whenever I read and reread your captivating creations… XXX

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    1. We are our own strange enemies, aren’t we. This about human nature fascinates, intrigues, disgusts and humbles me. As you said, it’s fucked up…. and still … some of us do try to break through. So grateful for your taking the time to read, and expand, and share. Thank you so. 🙏🏻♥️🕊xxx

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      1. If only the flow of conversations and exchanges of ideas among the humans everywhere would flow as seamlessly and beautifully as it does when one encounters your otherworldly prose and poetry then the world would be an absolute wonder to live in. ♥️ xxx

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  4. Words can sometimes be a tapestry spread across the sky, showing the world clearly what is desired and known, while other times they get lost in a sea of similar words that have no place together. We decipher and relate to others where their words resonate in different ways with each other, and within that we find our kindred.

    So many people follow a road travelled, gleefully allowing their end journey to be clear and focused. It’s when your journey allows variations to shift in and out, when it takes breath after breath with you, almost taking on a different being to yourself, that is when the journey truly becomes one of grander things. The self. The impure soiled in the pure.

    It’s when we question ourselves not for reward in things, but reward in self do we truly succeed.

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  5. I feel this. We’re always told, convinced, that somehow, if it’s great, we shouldn’t really go for it. If it feels like heaven, it’ll probably be hell in the end. I don’t get it.
    Maybe we should just let ourselves be what we feel, write what we feel and feel completely.
    Thanks for sharing.

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    1. Thank you so much, Joanne, for your kindness, openness, and thoughts. I love the way you say it. Reminds me of Mary Oliver’s words… let the soft animal of your body love what it loves… to feel completely is a brave and sacred thing…. ♥️🌹🕊

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  7. God you’re an incredible writer. Sometimes I worry about going too far or saying too much on here. But reading your work and taking in how gorgeous it is makes me want to be bold and fearless about that. ❤️

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  12. As ever, such a remarkable familiarity with words and experiences and how soulfully they express one another. Not a one way relationship, is it? Words are not solely a tool for expressing life. Words–and how we use them–are life. How eminently meaningful, to be gutted by poetry.

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