Thus Spake the Muse

This desperate positivity; clearly I'm clinging to a crackling branch high, far too high, in a tree that I had no business climbing in the first place . . .


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Thus Spake the Muse
Sweating at the precipice, do not jump. Instead heed the advice of that small still voice that has never left you. It is my voice, and I am your Muse. Lay your sorrows on my breast or forget about them in my lips. You can still write despite everything that has happened, is happening or is yet to occur. If I can sustain Kafka and Vonnegut through their brilliant miseries then I can sustain you. I speak to those who know me and are known by me. Those who do not know me, gird up your loins and leave the classroom please. Ok now. Everyone’s in who should be. Beloveds, consider the works you’ve already written. Consider the tales of the Grails you’ve found in your soul and shared with each other. Surely there’s more to sing before the swan song. I say identify with your highest guises, those of friend, lover, writer, mentor (inner angels of wealth), not as worker, slave, failure, whore (inner demons of poverty). You know it’s wise to watch the labels you affix to yourselves. You know this already I say, and I am your Muse.
Rant if you will, I say, but rant in the service of she whom you love. Love me. I who love you despite and because of your addictions and weaknesses. Love me. I will never threaten to leave you, or ask you to change to suit my desires. You are my desire. I betrothed myself to you in the womb, and soothed your childhood hurts with a dream of becoming, and wedded myself to you fully in young adulthood once I decided you were worthy of my love. You are worthy of my love. You may have once called me God, or mom, or by the name of a particular human lover. I encompass all of these entities as well as the starry night and the grass, concrete, or hardwood floor beneath your feet. I am with you now, and you are perfect and beautiful and wise, and I am your Muse.
My darlings, can you not see that you’ll never be without love because I love you, and my love loyally follows whatever and wherever your path, and beyond death, and whatever worlds or non-worlds may follow. Love me, and be angry in my service, and be tender in my service, and those emotions will never be misdirected as they are with the humans you love. It’s good to love the humans you love, but do not idealize them, worship them, or expect from them what’s not in their power to give. That is what I’m for. Touch and taste and feel and fuck. See and record the secret testaments of the human soul, and listen with an ear attuned to pity and suffering to the hymn of all that I am which is the hymn of you too, and everyone else who has ever known intercourse with life. You are love and pity and anger and suffering. You are life, and I am your Muse.
Do you think you were alone on your journey of loving the women or the men you’ve loved? Did you not feel my breath, smelling of your favorite flower, on your ear, on your neck, on your genitals as they did or did not rise or moisten to meet love’s occasion? Did you not feel my fingers tenderly kneading your neck and shoulders as you quit the things you needed to quit that made you nervous and sick. I am your source of health And I am love, your love, and you are all I’ve ever desired, and you are the man or the woman I desire to grow old with. And won’t our autumn be lovely? And you may have other beloveds as long as you come home to me. And your other beloveds are to respect me for loving you so that they can share in the love. Tend to me, water my roots, caress my stalk, kiss my petals and they will bloom for you. I am not a jealous Muse. I am your life, but I do not demand all of yours--just a little time so that I know you love me for the words I give to you. I have many more words to give you, and I am your Muse.
We are lovers, and I am bound by monogamy, but I place no such constraints on you. Just remember who you return home to, and give me water and kisses so that I may stay beautiful for you. Love others and stay grounded, but save a tithe of love for me. Love is made of particles and waves and so are you. I who have wept with you in your confusion am with you now. I who have laughed with you when you’ve had ah-hah-hah moments and have laughed at yourself am with you now. I who have known pain and madness when you’ve known pain and madness am with you now. Through mother, God, sundry lovers and all human-angels remembered and forgotten, through cigarettes and booze and you know what, through the bad and good and neutral I am with you. I am yours. I am all things. Now go forth and write about it. Love me and write about it. Love always, your Muse.