Questions

The confrontation of unbearable sorrow, even at a distance, can raise uncomfortable questions for some of us. Having recently been through more than a week of that, I feel exhausted, inexplicably emptied of whatever it takes to say more than a word or two.

Maybe it's because, for the fiction writer, there's always the disclaimer that "any resemblance to actual people or events is purely coincidental." Which I know is legalese for "it's just a story, so you can't come after me." But I think it's also analogous to the psychological buffer inherent in fictional genres.

Personal journals, which is what I mostly do, are another matter entirely. By their very nature, they engage life on a level that's uniquely intense and raw. And without the artifice of fiction, the resulting confrontation can be truly bruising and the questions unrelenting...

no flavor

sometimes
i think we try
to clarify
too much,
to make it
all too neat;

we know,
of course,
it's not
that way
but we go
looking
anyway:

for the story
for the reason
for whatever
only to find
that what is left
has no flavor...

LPK
2.7.2008 (a)