I am considering placing Word Raccoon into Creative Witness Protection.
This is not a decision I make lightly.
She has been a loyal, if unofficial, co-conspirator in my artistic life for some time now. She has assisted in poems, blog posts, chapbooks, and at least one emotional incident involving a grocery store parking lot and a line that refused to behave.
However.
Recent developments suggest escalation.
She is no longer content to sit quietly on the arm of the chair while I write like a reasonable person. She has begun insisting on… alternatives.
Songs, for example. (I’ve mentioned this before. But she persists.)
I will sit down to write a poem, a nice, contained poem with edges and intentions, and she will kick open the door like a tiny creative sheriff and say, “No. This is a chorus now.”
She’s been rooting around under my bed for my guitar. I told her a. My hands so no. b. I have NO CLUE the last time those strings were changed. So also no.
She has also taken to hoarding creative energy.
I do not mean this metaphorically.
I mean I will wake up with a perfectly respectable plan for the day, and she will have already spent the best parts of my mind on something that did not exist yesterday and now refuses to be ignored.
There are, at this time, no forms for this.
I have checked.
Additional concerns include:
- A tendency to escalate emotional tone without prior authorization
- Rewriting priorities mid-sentence
- Unexpected kitchen singing with a whisk.
(We will not be elaborating on that last point at this time. The file is open. The file is… thick.)
Naturally, I have begun to explore options.
Witness Protection seems appropriate.
A new name. A quiet life. Something low-stakes. I would say I am sending her to an “exotic” pet rescue, but she would escalate that into something worse in her mind and cling to my shoulder like that parrot to Niles’s head on Frasier.
Perhaps she could become an Ordinary Productivity Squirrel. (Hear me out.)
She could live in a beige office park of the soul, where the lighting is soft and nothing unexpected happens. She could process manageable thoughts. She could allow me to finish a task from beginning to end without introducing a bridge, a refrain, or an existential aside made of shredded cheese and shredded thoughts.
I presented this plan to her.
She declined.
She cited poor snack conditions and a general lack of “vibe.”
She also informed me that she is not, in fact, the problem.
This is inconvenient.
Because the truth, which I was hoping to avoid for at least another week, is that she is not wrong.
The problem is not that she is unruly.
The problem is that she keeps insisting on a life that is louder than the one I can neatly manage.
She does not believe in staying in one lane.
She does not respect genre.
She does not understand why something that could be a poem should not also be a song, or why something that could be said should be said quietly.
She has been asked (and not just by me) if EVERYTHING is really a ten for her and she says yes, yes, YES!
She does not see the point of behaving when there is something to make.
And I, unfortunately, am harboring her until decisions are made.
So for now, she remains “at large.”
If you encounter her, do not approach: she may bite your shoelaces.
She will offer you a poem when you meant to write an email.
She will hand you a song when you asked for silence.
She will be very convincing.
I am still deciding whether to send her to that program.
But between us,
I probably won’t. She’s a goodhearted beastie, even if she is a bit much.
Even for me.
You know what’s not too much? The fabulous news that one of my early poems, “All In” has found a home in an upcoming anthology, Indiana Bards Poetry Anthology 2026. Many thanks to IBPA! The poem is one of my special ones, and I’m grateful it will have a larger life now.
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