with the under of your tongue

Image by @dearseymour

Heyo, lovely people. I’ve been very much in my head the last two weeks, doing my best to keep up with my university studies and not die in D&D (Update: my Paladin, who has thus far died thrice in this campaign, is still alive). I also started probably my most personal project yet, a book of poetry, which honestly, I don’t know if I’ll ever send out into the world. I wanted to talk at length about writing for oneself in this post, but honestly? It’s not nearly so complicated.

You write for yourself. That is the most crucial reader for any and every project. Even if or when you’re finetuning something, polishing it to be more palatable for other readers, in the end, it’s your story. Maybe you never polish it to become more accessible for others. Perhaps you leave it for ten years before you send it to another. Maybe you write something and immediately pass it on. They’re all correct. If it’s what you’ve decided is suitable for your book, then it’s right.

That is the beginning, the middle, and the end of that question. Whether we’re talking about literature, poetry, a painting or photograph, anything in the vast, gaping realms of art, there is nothing more on the matter to be said — the same truth applies.

So, I’ll end this post with a poem I wrote from nowhere, one I currently call, with the under of your tongue.

When you gaze up, do you not see

roiling waves of blue-grey, consumed

by lightning and hail and snow from below?

Why would you not lean and see

the frostbitten winds gliding through

violet skies skittered

past the ambered shoreline’s death?

It’s so close to your bare toes dipped in dirt

humming beyond the sparkling grains

of sand

you’ll never taste again. Surely,

you want to open your mouth

and grace the falling snow with the under

of your tongue. Or, is that just me?

— Charis.