Sludge (or why I write)

This sludge did not begin as a primordial slime
that so effectively covered the water,
so thick you could walk on it,
starving the fish below. No,
it began as a single cell in still water,
still water that could not leech it’s own poison
and send it down the long path to the salty ocean.

And in that still water, it thrived, never challenged,
never removed, until now it has become a beautiful death
and the still water lies below, a corpse, a victim
to inactivity.

About this poem

I didn’t want to write this morning.

There are a lot of days I don’t want to write. I am drained. I am too full. Life is too busy. Still. I write. Even days that nothing appears here, I write. Like leeches in Colonial days, it removes the poison in my life. It is my therapy. It keeps the darkness at bay. It reminds me of the beauty. It is my weapon against the sludge.

Tom