Writing for Writers or When Workshops Kill - a poem from undergrad


Writing for Writers or When Workshops Kill


Go ahead and bleed all over the paper

but then squeegee it up into a nice straight line

and then, why not, just for shits and giggles, 

arrange the splatter pattern into a nice

dot-dot-dot.


A little messy,

take a rag that you’ve used before

and smother the life until it smears the page

in more neutered shapes.


I’ll hold my hand over your mouth.

You can breathe, barely.

The point is not to kill,

but to appreciate.  Life

is the hardest way

to contemplate this mess you’ve made.


Sure, you are getting light headed,

a clouded fade in the eyes, but

stop making excuses of absent explanations

for why you bled so profusely.


I invited you to bleed on the paper,

but you made a mess

on the walls.


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