cream rising

the chief of the local nation keeps coming in to get coffee, and tonight, he looked in my eyes and said,

cream rises to the top. you don't have to do anything.

there is a lot of wisdom there, and i'm of the do something (do ANYTHING) set.

perhaps that's my problem. perhaps that's the message i'm to get.

i want to go away. this weekend i'm off and we're going to the horse expo, i don't have to drive, if i can allow myself to be driven, i may actually get a bit of rest.

and i will spectate. all weekend.

before i go, i will see bucky though. i need his particular brand of therapy.

i thought tonight this is the opposite of the message in the bottle (sting originated this thought), because there are so many faces and words and names here, it's like an ocean of sorts. and this, my little bottle, my little bobbing message may never make its destination, and perhaps will return unanswered or never return at all. that is how it is.

but i'm getting tired. and i've a paper due monday. my essay is not coming together and i've two books to read this weekend. i'm not sure what i'll do. perhaps read one tonight and piece meal the other through the expo. i always have a book in tow.

i would like to write something critically strong. i'm not sure i'm up for that at this moment. i may punt that to the next assignment.

i have two more forms i'm trying to write and i'm daunted. the mindbending rules of only two rhymes and so many syllables, etc., etc., makes this part of the writing feel less like expression and more like submission.

that's it, that's why i don't want to do it. i hate to be stuffed into a corset of words. my life is suffocating enough without taking my writing and contorting it. but this is my task this semester. to pretzel my works and make them rhyme, god help me.

i don't know how i could have thought this would be a good idea. i don't know that my prof won't hate every single word i've written. all i can do, as i encouraged a poet friend the other day when he was feeling down about his works, i said,

i don't know that any of us like our own work. we do the best we can and throw it out there to see what happens. that's the best we can do, i think.

but tonight, not even that is enough and i must rouse myself from this waking slumber. and accept the facts as i know them to be.

i've had enough of dreaming.

though dreaming has kept me alive.

i fear my soul will raisin without a dream. perhaps it all ready has and i just don't know it yet.

maybe the cream will rise, if i do nothing.