To write about what one knows is a dangerous game
Each syllable the click of a gun.
It’s a Russian roulette
learning how to encapsulate
a hundred thousand
thoughts, looks, words
phrases, actions, consequences
into the space of an innocently clean page;
a tumble of speech
thrown up, spat out.
One wrong move and I’ve captured it all wrong
the game is over
in the flick of a wrist
I am branded a liar
a weaver of untruths.
To be able to know is to write, they say.
Ask the neatly balanced equations
toy soldiers in formation.
Ask the tidy lines of sums
as black and white as a chessboard.
Then tell it to my page:
a patchwork of scribbles
messy with hyperbolic phrases.
So I give you, ladies and gentlemen,
my spinning top tale.
