the hungry

It is a living thing. I starved it, when I said I would write, but didn't. No thoughts to words for years, I would only sometimes pause on this little notebook of penned titles. Titles of unwritten stories in fading ink will soon be forgotten.

But today I thought about it for the first time in what felt like forever, in the odd few minutes between drudge-work. What a relief. What unbidden release. It was starving, but not dead; withered, but surviving.

I fed it Thai music, and it stirred. I felt its hunger. It swallowed the melody, the unintelligible emotions, and the yearning. It wanted more, so I tossed it a quote: "Drink from the well of yourself and begin again." 

More, it said again. This was Bukowski's quote, from a poem. Bukowski wrote about dirty realism, and transgressive fiction.

Keep going. Wouldn't that titled story fit Bukowski's style? That story would write itself. Add a note about a Thai OST.

Good, keep it coming. And remember: "Don't try." 

Photo Credit: Mixed race man holding fork and knife at table
BGM: "แค่เพื่อนมั้ง" (Just Friend?) by Nanon Korapat