Today I wrote ten poems before lunch.

I know this because they are sitting here looking at me, like they showed up uninvited but brought their own chairs.

They weren’t here, and now they are, facing me, smiling, frowning, squinting. I’m equal parts proud and alarmed. 

Word Raccoon would like it noted that this was not a goal. This was not a challenge. This was not me “being productive.” This was me sitting down for what I thought would be a normal amount of writing, and then apparently the trapdoor opened.

Word Raccoon says:
Sometimes the poems have already been chewing on you and today they finished.

It only  took a couple of hours, which immediately made me suspicious, because we’ve all absorbed the lie that important things must be slow, painful, and accompanied by a montage. But Word Raccoon is allergic to montages. (I’m not. They can be fun.) 

She says speed does not equal frivolity, and also that if you wait too long, the poems start redecorating.

I am not explaining these poems today, just introducing them.
Word Raccoon has her foot down.
She is very small but very firm.

Instead, I’m just going to list them, like a grocery receipt you don’t need to apologize for.

POETRY 1/12/26 (tone: Grievance Culture)

• Caviar Seams
• Work With What You Have (lazy title, works for now)
• Entitlement (see above)
• In a Small Town (definitely needs renaming)
• Sherazading Death (okay, I kinda like this one)
• Get Thee To A (rest of title purposely blank, because that’s the end)
• Huffing Literature with the Barista (there was jazz, too)
• Peekaboo (I kinda want to flush this poem, if it weren’t true)
• Place Holder (that title is a…)
• How Little (even the title withholds)

That’s the whole thing. Ten poems. One day. No candle. No aesthetic suffering. Just words showing up like they had a meeting I forgot to calendar, and here I was asking myself if I had anything, anything, left to write, poemwise, after I spent time with the novel this morning.

These are all of a piece, but are they more? Hard to say yet. Writing them was like undressing, layer by layer. (And let me say, it started out cold so I am currently wearing three outer layers.) 

Word Raccoon would also like me to tell you that it is now time for lunch, not a snack, and that lunch should be eaten soon and possibly warm. Definitely before the gym. 

She says you don’t write ten poems and then pretend a handful of almonds is enough. She also says that is how burnout happens and also how people get mean for no reason.

So I am closing the notebook.
The poems can cool off.
Word Raccoon is washing her hands in the sink like she’s been at work all morning.

More later. Or not.
We’ll see what shows up after lunch.