writing the night

there is work
to be done
but I have not
the patience or
the focus for it

in my head
I retreat
to the days of
the music and the bic
and the spiral notebook

so many years
yellowed in candlelight
the words that gushed
and flowed to the old songs
with so much force

I could hardly capture them
now are choked
and stuttered
and micro-managed

I am that girl, but not
now a loose-skinned woman
decades beyond the words
and the heart and the need

but the heart still beats
the need remains
the words still come
more slowly
but not less urgently