I

i read and reread my works.

Poems, stories, narratives, and just plain rants.

Line after line of meaningful words that held no meaning with me.

Words that i "wrote"

What does wrote mean in my sense? More like typed.

Series upon series of carefully chosen words

all lined up in the right order to represent emotions i'd never felt,

experiences i never experienced.

i could only synthesize from

what i'd seen on TV

in books

in other people's reality.

So, i tried this "I" out for size.

It stood, quietly powerful, in the middle of a blank, digital page.

The computer upon which it was written, regarded it as a series of ones and zeroes.

If only i could view it with such apathy.

01001001.

i sized it up i meditated on it i scrutinized it from every angle i inhaled it.

everything it meant

the eternity of infinities contained between each end of the skinny black bar

It terrified me.

And like the virgin drag of a cigarette, i coughed it all back up.

My "I" blinked at me in the middle of the screen.

Oh, backspace key, i damn near beat you to death trying to erase this "I" from not only the screen but, from my system.

i feared if it festered too long in somewhere deep and untouched, i might actually start to write

Back to romantic poems of  boys i never loved

Epic thrillers of murders i never committed