I Can Weep Pretty Easily.

I Became An Electrician After High School. But I Always Had This Thing In Me To Write. But It Was Always A Little Shameful. To Say You Were A Poet Was Saying You Were Kind Of Crazy, And I Carried That Around For A Long Time. I Still Kind Of Carry That. And I Think It Might Be True, Actually.

Sometimes I'd See My Father, Walking Past My Building On His Way To Another Nowhere. I Could Have Given Him A Key, Offered A Piece Of My Floor. A Futon. A Bed. But I Never Did. If I Let Him Inside I Would Become Him, The Line Between Us Would Blur, My Own Slow-motion Car Wreck Would Speed Up. The Slogan On The Side Of A Moving Company Truck Read Together We Are Going Places--modified By A Vandal Or A Disgruntled Employee To Read Together We Are Going Down. If I Went To The Drowning Man The Drowning Man Would Pull Me Under. I Couldn't Be His Life Raft.

Writers, Especially Poets, Are Particularly Prone To Madness.

There Is A Physics To The World, Which Non-fiction Has A Contract To Stand In Awe Of, Otherwise It Becomes Completely Self-centered And Ego-driven, Which Is The Death Of A Memoir.

If You're Going To Write About Someone's Life, You Don't Just Use Them For Wallpaper. You Have To Honor And Respect That Life.