To create good art
we are tasked with removing our masks,
with allowing ourselves to become vulnerable
to everything that surrounds us.
Everything we may have otherwise
been protecting ourselves from
so that we,
in these fleeting moments,
can allow ourselves to feel enough
to be moved

We become exposed,
everything once muted shifted raw.
You let down your walls as you take up
that pen
that brush,
whatever tool it is that’s capable
of carving you out of yourself,
and a weight you otherwise never notice
becomes pressing.
The awe and wonder of being Here at all
suddenly, almost too much,
flooding into you, through you
like liquid light.
All of it visceral, every second surreal.
You catch your breath and try to bear it,
to not burn up in the white hot heat of it
as you channel it,
this feeling of living, out of you
onto the canvas or the page,
as a song into the air,
or a debut across the stage

and when you are Here,
everything is beautiful.

And everything hurts