but not like those poets

I am writing a story about a deformed man and a little girl spending a day together in a sculpture park. She shows him a poem she wrote about water and the world. Naturally it is simple and child-like. Not childish but certainly innocent and trustingly naive, in the best way. I can't get the story off my mind.

too comfortable for closeness

A writing community would be nice. Last night Honey Bee played at a local store called Pulp which specializes in art/paper products. Mostly it has quite beautiful greeting cards and gift wrap. The event was a slightly haphazard gathering of some essayists, musicians, and a poet, I think. If there was a poet, which I believe I heard there was supposed to be, he or she must have read while Melissa and I were getting pizza. But still, poet or no poet, it was a special evening. It certainly fomented a discontentment in my belly. I have a tiny reserve of unfinished stories I am trying to complete. All fiction, all short, and all with endings that are terribly elusive to me. I sketch and outline and jot and write but feel despondent for want of a community of critics and peers.

I feel envious of Melissa at times. She has a group of young writers built-in to her creative writing program at school. I too had this once. I was in writing classes in college and I squandered so many opportunities for focused composition and critique. I was never fully prepared for the workshops. I pounded out half-conceived stories or poems that only survived because they were so convoluted they were barely evaluable. Oddball twists or indecipherable meaning are my most useful crutches. Luckily for me, I can usually slide by disguising it as postmodern writing.

And I promise, there is supposed to be meaning in what I write. I just have the darndest time conveying it. That is why I want people to help me exhume the purpose I know is...just...right...there...if I...could only...ugh...reach it