Insomniac

[poliphilo]

I lay awake last night trying to remember the texts of poems I wrote 15 years ago and of which no known copies survive. 

Not an activity I'd recommend.

Not at all restful. Not at all a good way of getting to sleep.

Certain lines remain. You'd think I'd be able to reconstruct the surrounding text from these markers but I can't. Even where I know the general sense the actual words elude me. In some particularly frustrating instances I know the grammar and rythmn of a line but one or two key words have fallen out. Come on, I wrote the originals; surely my mind stll runs in the same grooves, this ought to be child's play. But it doesn't and it isn't.

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I brought this on myself. I had a big bonfire a few years back and now I'm regretting it.

[fickleasever.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know the feeling. In 1973 I destroyed a diary I'd been writing in since I was a child, and I've regretted it ever since.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've destroyed diaries too. Big mistake.