The Meaningful Monster

Meaning is a scary word to me, and something I fight constantly while creating. So when I sit down to write, I do what I can to dodge it: create word-hoard after word-hoard; mimic the syntax of writers I love; play games of rearrangement and estrangement. But let me be clear: there is something exciting in this fear. I love it when, after I’ve done all I can to avoid it, meaning creeps up and starts breathing down my neck. That the words I forced together because they were next to each other in my notebook or because they sounded pretty become some hot-blooded beast that begins to hunt other words on its own, sucking them up into its big, meaningful mouth. Then it turns on me, starts running after everything I find beautiful and frightening, chases after my dead father, my failed relationships, my landscapes I keep hidden within me, and it rips into them. That beast—it makes such lovely bone piles.  

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