It's now reached a point where I'm having to truly deep my life when it comes to this thing. I promised myself I would not overthink and I would relax, and that there's no pressure to write anything good. The only task is to complete something. But there's that very irritating self-censorship auto-filter that gets rid of things you think won't be very good. In which case, work through it. I had another two drafts I wrote today that I thought were terrible. I should have let you be the judge of that and taken a bigger risk. With each newly drafted poem, the last one felt better. I'd return to the last one to find the newer thing was the better poem. Then I'd switch back until the--

You get the idea. The only conclusion I can draw to this is that they were all the same in terms of quality. If they're all terrible, then surely it makes no difference as to which I upload? But in dismissing my own work before I've started, I've not only invalidated the writing process, I've risked putting you off reading it. And I've also risked insulting the intelligence and taste of those that have told me that my work is worthwhile. That's never a good thing to do. At best, it is evidence that your taste has evolved beyond your ability to match it and you're experiencing being in the zone of proximal development (think of the bit in a RPG game where you're too weak to take the next boss but gaining XP/needed items is long for man). At best. But it also risks becoming self-indulgent and another excuse to become lazy. Or worse: you risk not improving or committing to whatever it is you're working on because you think neither you nor your work are ultimately not worth the energy and time it would take to improve. Maybe it speaks to something deeper. Maybe it doesn't. But it's definitely bulls**t. You are not money. You are no antique. You are valuable, regardless of whether you or anyone else thinks so. So don't be a wasteman, please.

Over the course of writing this, I realised how ridiculous I was for complaining. I'll save the rest for the poem, but thank you for bearing with me. This one is in a form devised by Terrance Hayes known as a Gramme of &s. Hit me up for more on that. Also safe, SugarJ Poet, for the blog mention. (Check him out if you haven't already)

I hope this is genuinely of more value to you than it is to me.

Enjoy.

COMPLAINING

If it wasn’t for your constant moaning,
I may have taken you seriously. You ask me if oiling
engines would have been more worthwhile. There is still so long
for you to go, and you’re stuck trying to be honest and plain
in your work, wondering if your lamp
is worth the match that failed to light it, palming
your way through your mental list of excuses. Your peers are icons
not because they are valuable and you are a failing coin,
but because they are good at carrying on. Yet you are here nailing
yourself to a spaghetti stick cross, impaling
your loins with a toothpick. Behave. Stop pretending your task is the mouth of a lion.

[N.B. Italicised wisdom paraphrased words of Bohdan Piasecki and R.A. Villanueva. Look them up]