To define is to limit.

sometimes a secret bubbles up inside of you, natural and beautiful, like a spring in the middle of a shaded wood, and it's so small and so clear and so perfect that you need to keep it. just for now. just to start with. it needs to be protected and there is no one else around to do it so you take up the task. and you hold that secret close like a heartbeat, like a butterfly, like the first ten cents that you ever got your hands on and you didn't quite know what it was or what it meant but you knew that it was somehow tied up with power and freedom and it was a little piece of the thing that everyone else in the world was chasing after. and maybe your legs were too short and your lungs were too small to join the race just yet, but you held your fist tight around the small piece of the future that you knew you'd go after one day and you felt connected to everyone else. and you're sitting in the forest with the small spring that grew into a creek that grew into a stream that grew into a river and it is still clear and it is still perfect but you're starting to worry that it doesn't need your protection anymore, and you start to think about other people wading through your river with their dirty feet and their grimy hands and you can't breathe because the weight of sharing this perfect place is sitting heavy on your chest and the thought of people ruining what you have protected for so long is crushing your lungs. so you build a bridge to divert people away from your river. let them go over instead of through. but you think about them stomping over the clear water and kicking down bits of dirt and throwing rocks over the edge and you're seeing red in a place that used to be green. you are yelling at the people that are trying to cross and scaring away the ones that even get close. the people you used to feel connected to now just look like the enemy. with the purest of intentions you have become the troll under the bridge.

***

sometimes the smallest hint of an idea comes into my mind and instead of letting it stew and marinate, instead of waiting until it forms itself into something that makes sense, i write it down. and the next thing and the next and the next and in an almost panicked state i am putting down mixed metaphors and half-baked ideas and imagery just this side of good. and then i read over it and it sounds like a hurried jumble and instead of editing it or carving it for pieces i decide to leave it alone and post it. because why not.