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persistent disguise
persistent disguise
You enter the drafting room
like a sprinter stepping onto a track
that keeps rearranging itself
whenever you blink.
First step: pretend the blank field
is already bursting with form.
Pretend you can see the finish
even though the horizon
keeps folding in on itself.
Step two: chase the line
that flickers just out of reach.
It moves like a creature
that knows you’re watching
and enjoys the game.
Third step: build momentum
from nothing but stubborn breath
and the faint pressure
of an idea that refuses
to introduce itself properly.
Halfway through, the poem
starts coaching you back —
not kindly, not cruelly,
just with the blunt certainty
of something that believes
you can lift more than you should.
You push anyway.
You push because the page
has begun to tilt its head
as if waiting for you
to prove your own theory
about what might happen next.
By the final stretch,
syntax is sprinting beside you,
metaphor is heckling from the rail,
and the whole thing feels
like a dare you accepted
before thinking it through.
Still, you keep going —
not because you trust the outcome,
but because the act of moving
creates its own terrain,
and the terrain keeps whispering
that you’re almost there
even when you're still going.
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