My muse, the hermit

 I’ve never been one to write for an agenda, and that’s because of two things:

1. I refuse to write preachy, detached poetry that doesn’t resonate in some way with my eternal soul. As a result of this, I spend a lot of time just waiting for inspiration to hit me like a subtle and flighty dump truck.
2. Inspiration and I have somewhat of a contract, the terms thereof being: it is free to come and go as it pleases, with little regard for my schedule or my feelings, and I can choose whether or not to entertain it.

Ours has always been a love-hate relationship, but since I started college, that relationship has become even more strained. I think my muse is jealous that I now have something called “responsibilities”, and has been punishing me for this infraction by burying itself halfway into the dirt of my subconscious like some weird little gnomish mind-hermit. A hermit that only deigns to emerge about once every full moon.

As frustrating as that can be, the famine of truly genuine inspiration that I’ve been experiencing has taught me to appreciate it more, especially when I end up discovering a poem like this one inside myself.

 

Wipeout

A bike is freedom,

childhood on wheels.

Wind-whipped hair,

rubber flexing on asphalt

while spectating trees

applaud your daredevil speed,

showering leaves like roses.

 

To him, that bike

is freedom.

Until ten-year-old bravado

betrays him

and tires skid,

scattering red and gold.

His flight is tainted magic.

Rather inflexible,

that asphalt.

 

(There IS a story here-a story involving me and a hill and a bike named “Wipeout”. I might tell it to you someday.)