I See The Poem Or The Novel

I See Myself As Someone Who's Been Saved By Writing. God Knows What I Would Have Been, Become Or How I Would Have Ended Up Without It.

Her Father Had Taught Her About Hands. About A Dog's Paws. Whenever Her Father Was Alone With A Dog In A House He Would Lean Over And Smell The Skin At The Base Of Its Paw. This, He Would Say, As If Coming Away From A Brandy Snifter, Is The Greatest Smell In The World! A Bouquet! Great Rumours Of Travel! She Would Pretend Disgust, But The Dog's Paw Was A Wonder: The Smell Of It Never Suggested Dirt. It's A Cathedral! Her Father Had Said, So-and-so's Garden, That Field Of Grasses, A Walk Through Cyclamen--a Concentration Of Hints Of All The Paths The Animal Had Taken During The Day.

All I Ever Wanted Was A World Without Maps.

Moments Before Sleep Are When She Feels Most Alive, Leaping Across Fragments Of The Day, Bringing Each Moment Into The Bed With Her Like A Child With Schoolbooks And Pencils. The Day Seems To Have No Order Until These Times, Which Are Like A Ledger For Her, Her Body Full Of Stories And Situations.

...sometimes We Enter Art To Hide Within It. It Is Where We Can Go To Save Ourselves, Where A Third-person Voice Protects Us.