I had it in my hand, within my very grasp, and then somehow, something imperceptibly changed and it was gone. I lost it before I could make a memory, and the only thing I have left to hold on to is the feeling that I had it, that split second before it disappeared. Even now I've forgotten the weight on my tongue - those words that melted into oblivion before I got the chance to commit them to paper. I am only a poet when I do not attempt to transcribe the words that spin through my head. And then this feeling settles on me, ugly and dark, a feeling that there should be a scar for something that only existed for a moment, so at least to have some record of its existence. But there is nothing, only a frustration that it was there, and is not any longer. The idea whirled into the void, and my mind was only a pit stop along the way, the way people pause at gas stations and leave no trace when they depart, save a slightly more diminished reservoir of petrol.
Though I retrace my steps to find those words again, they are gone; disappeared, never to be seen again. Searching everywhere in the city, from high to low, dark to light, streetcorners and skyscrapers, each yielding nothing. But I promise to slash the sky until the words rain down from the heavens. For what is a poet when they have lost the tools of their trade?
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