With the act of pressing a key, I am in essence logging my thoughts and sending them out for review, An essay or a paragraph will determine my grade or whether I am accepted into a college. My future is dependent on whether I can back myself up with the black blood of my thoughts. Revision after revision I miss grammatical errors, I write myself into walls too high to jump to conclusions, burying myself in over explanation and reiterated and reiterated points too dull to feel. Every red cut off the pen is as if their words are written across my skin and not the pale comparison of compressed wood pulp drag across my flesh, crossing my thoughts out of existence. circling and rephrasing whether it is the blood-red sun that is dragged out of the sky, or the bloodied sun being pulled into the depth of night tracking reds and pinks through the supplle clouds.

You are a statue sitting eyes fixed on your newborn child held by a stranger. Anticipation and doubt size each other up preparing for about, boring door sized holes in your lungs stealing your breath. The slightest sound from your editor pulls you to your feet breath catching with every twitch of their eye. A chuckle a laugh is it at you or with you, their eyes will not say. He is given back riddled with scars and gashes vital pieces of his make up missing. How could someone be so careless with your precious creation, Critique is one of the many reasons I hate writing.

Critique is one of the reasons I love to write. each revision brings ideas to further fruition. Getting back your creation covered in the red paint of war limping but walking with a limp and missing an eye. You bring in your soldier inside carrying with him your voice and go to mending, Wrapping subjects and verb around a gash like a pen stroke, Resetting a plot like a broken tibia and stitching together a scene with the pitch black thread coming from the tip of my pen.

the final draft like a new generation of people born has with it the rough roots of their origin but also the new creations of generations past is printed. the process is gruesome the pain is palatable but the final product is worth the gashes that are riddled across the rejected drafts.