“We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others, that in the end, we become disguised to ourselves.”

- Francois De La Rochefoucauld

hmmm.

In poetry, the number of beginnings so far exceeds the number of endings that we cannot even conceive it. Not every poem is finished — one poem is abandoned, another catches fire and is carried away by the wind, which may be an ending, but it is the ending of a poem without an end. 

Paul Valéry, the French poet and thinker, once said that no poem is ever ended, that every poem is merely abandoned. This saying is also attributed to Stéphane Mallarmé, for where quotations begin is in a cloud. 

Paul Valéry also described his perception of first lines so vividly, and to my mind so accurately, that I have never forgotten it: the opening line of a poem, he said, is like finding a fruit on the ground, a piece of fallen fruit you have never seen before, and the poet’s task is to create the tree from which such a fruit would fall.

- Mary Ruefle, Madness, Rack, and Honey

“This is not a poem.
This is a 3 a.m.
phone call to 911
from the back
of a stranger’s trunk.
This is a prayer.
This is a bar napkin secret
flushed down the toilet
of a one-night stand’s
studio apartment.
A bucket list –
only 7) fall in love
crossed out of it.
These, my hands.
Things I would ink
on skin if all the paper
in the world disappeared.
This is a swear. A gunshot
fired, echoing, from a distance.
Me saying yes
to myself
and no to anyone who
makes me feel like I don’t
deserve it. This is
the afterthought
of a door slamming.
The anatomy of a parentheses.
Another name for the heart.
This is my mother,
seven years old
and surviving on nothing
but soy sauce
for dinner.
This is never an apology.
This is what the night would say
if it had your mouth
on my mouth
before I punched you
on the mouth.
But mostly what the light
would say. Always,
the word
stay.”

- "When It All Comes Down To It," Kim Visda