This piece was written about my inner conflict with always writing poems or stories involving an intimate partner I had never even had. I felt wrong always dedicating my writings to somebody who either didn't exist or didn't exist in my life the way I wished they did.

Who is the bigger fool?

The poet who writes love sonnets their muse will never ponder over, or the sonnets themselves?

Is it the damned pen, sharpened to a needlepoint, for being an enabler?

Or does the fault fall on the paper, torn yet yearning, for the spilled ink to gently run its fingers down its back; whispering sweet nothings between its lines.

giving it meaning.

Dare the blame fall on the muse themselves?

Oblivious and unaware of what they do to the lonely storyteller they have created.

Do they not know they've lived a million different lives in somebody else's head?

Softly humming in rooms that have never existed, sitting under windows with infinity behind their panes.

Dream-state afternoons spent underneath trees that grow between pages, below clouds that are spun from memories.

Days spent getting lost in city streets, crossing intersections and robbing convenience stores of all their longing.

Making getaways to beaches coated in darkness, sitting in the sand until the tide swallows them whole.

Whole lifetimes spun to soothe a destitute author; satisfying a desirous heart