Let the poem write itself

Let the words flow through your pen

Open your mind

Let your thoughts come out to play

 

Let the story write itself

The plot is there

The characters already live

Just pluck them from thin air

 

Let the wound heal itself

Give it attention

Give it great care

Let it breathe in fresh air

 

Let the puzzle sort itself

Don’t pick up the pieces

You’ll just make a mess

Don’t worry, time sorts out all puzzles

 

Let the song compose itself

Words have wings

Marry your words to the harmony

Words don’t always need music to sing

 

Be a canvas to the whole world

Let children fill in the emptiness with their vivid imaginations

Let amateur painters blot out the darkest corners with their unlearned brush strokes

Let seasoned artists mold,shape, create

Something from nothing

Definition out of thin air

 

Write something terrible and feel great about it

The best art

Comes from many attempts

So at first when you grab the pen, the paper

The paint brush, the canvas

Don’t worry if you’re gonna fuck up

Truth is, you will

But don’t let that keep you

 

How did we learn to walk?

By first falling flat on our faces

Well, go on then!

Write something terrible and feel great!

Sing and hit the wrong note

And don’t yourself hate

Paint,paint,paint

The canvas doesn’t ever worry

Whether you’ll make a mistake

The stage doesn’t care that you tapped out the wrong beat

Or that once, you had two left feet

The blank pages in the book don’t care about grammatical errors

They trust the writer knows what to delete

So, what are you waiting for?!

Eva Santiago copyright 2013