Fears (And Stains)

 Margaret Atwood asks, "What are your fears when it comes to writing?"

Fears. I fear not being read...because the writing isn't good. I tell myself I'll write for myself - the joy of it - but I do want to be read. But other eyes and other ears and other minds will judge and criticize. And that is what I fear most, that my bad writing is an indictment of me - the person who is not good at anything, even into old age. So I tell myself I write for myself. I guess if I value writing, I will spend time with writing. Those things we value are the things we spend time with. So I'll tell myself that any icing on the cake - like being read by others - will taste sweet but I fear this is so unlikely and that it will eventually feel like writing on a deserted island. 

I fear me.

And I should. My past is my predictor. My artistic achievements? What are they? My past is my predictor. My past is a minefield: littered with bodies and limbs and bloody failures; steam rising from the guilt and ineptitude as I bleed out over the decades, staining everyone's clothing.

Set. In. Stone.

But am I not shackled by the past? Am I not living out Freudian mommy and daddy issues from the…past? Why is the arc of my life replete with turbulence mainly derived from my past? What else can one draw from but the past? Am I nothing but my past? The reason they tell you the future is wide open is because it’s not the past. My future, like yours, is wide open: nothing but an infinite number of choices that lead to nothing but an infinite number of choices. You and me, we are doomed to choose. But you and me, our past, is sealed, shut, closed, locked, determined. Set. In. Stone.

And that wide open future you are pining for?
Just give it a second.

The Past

The past she is a loaded gun

Her past is a mirror held up to you

Showing all your imperfections

He doesn’t think that way

In front of the huge fireplace in the million dollar home high in the hills with a generation of wealth at his back and more in his future

You are practically broke, for all practical purposes as they say

Your financial future is bleak

Be positive they say

Sure, right away

Let me just throw away this past real quick