Doubt & Definitions, 3 am, Ancient City

Half-empty hotel.

A distant flush.

Though with you I sleep fitfully—

And perhaps tonight your sleep is

Blissfully unimpeded—

Mine never comes.

Sehnsucht:

That sense of longing

When you leave a place

And that place retains a part of you

And ransoms it,

Demanding your return.

Eifersucht:

Envy.

The sensation of less-ness,

Of incompletion.

The clear, transparent reflection

Of one’s faults

In the mirror of another.

For though I recite the liturgy

Of Creativity,

I do not believe.

My inner pragmatist laughs.

If Creativity were not

The butt of my jokes,

I would be forced to acknowledge

It as my superior.

Is it because I must forever concede

To your superiority?

Does that make my aspirations

Insignificant,

Worthless,

A mere trifle?

I rejoice in the company of those

Who value thought and turn of phrase—

Even without a punchline—

Is that a kind of heresy,

Disloyalty,

To you?

Or is it merely a return

To the place where I was born,

Where once upon a time,

What I loved was king?

Unbeknownst to me, did you,

Like a Viking marauder,

Upon my long-lost surrender,

Whisk me off to distant shores,

Condemning me forever

To look out my high window,

Pining for my homeland?

Suechtig:

In the adjective form,

The root reveals itself.

Addicted.

Is the penchant to create

Just the stubborn pull

Of an opioid?

A puppeteer, who would mastermind

My every move,

Pulling the strings

And never allowing me

To forget his presence?

Or perhaps, like a leashed dog,

I am being walked,

And my owner feeds me treats—

Ego boosts,

Compliments,

Saccharine flattery—

To keep me always docile

And domestic

And on my leash?

Not unlike marriage, this addiction.

Each, its own form of Fascism.

Subsuming oneself to the will of another,

Pursuing the greater good

For the benefit of the group.

Selfishness is, after all, a vice,

To be vanquished and ignored.

Sacrifice and self-denial,

On the other hand,

Are the keys to martyrdom.

Suchen:

To seek.

The Germanic and distant cousin

Of our own to suck.

To be at the behest of another,

And in the control of a greater power—

What sucks more than addiction?

A poet speaks of avoiding the lure

Of cigarettes

And for a moment,

I taste the tar on my tongue,

Feel the harsh warmth with each intake of breath,

And know again that mental clarity–

Or illusion thereof–

That sense of independence and triumph.

I understand addiction.

There, but for the Grace of God go I,

The poet says.

How lucky to escape that fate!

Another poet silences his cough and snickers.

Luck comes in many forms,

Both in the avoidance of the tiger

And in its embrace.

And suddenly, I am perched

On a credenza, midwinter,

By a cracked window, willing the smoke

To leave my tiny room

So that I need not acknowledge my dirty secret,

My closeted rebellion,

Even though it is,

To everyone but me,

Of little consequence.

We suck in air, or smoke,

Or the refined ether of creativity,

Much like the baby, suckling at the breast,

Whether for comfort, or nourishment, or need.

Is that not suchen—seeking—

In its finest and most basic form?

If so, may I now, at last, admit,

After long years of staring out the window,

That it has sucked to want and wait so long,

To waste a life in longing.

Longing perhaps less for the moment of creation–

The Eureka moment—

And more, for the company of those

Who can see

And recognize

And know

And value

Me.

The company of those, I mean–

Those those–

Those those who are not you.

For more general info about me, read About. For more info on my latest gigs and appearances (virtual and otherwise) please see my Events and Readings by Andrea W LeDew page, updated 4/18/26.