I wasn’t going to share this for two reasons. First, I don’t feel like it’s anywhere close to done. It’s not even a v1.0 in my mind, it needs a fair amount of work. Including on a title.

But more importantly, I’m not overly convinced I hit what I was trying to say. More on that later though, because both are irrelevant. I have a post quota to hit, and I need to get in the habit of sharing and not hiding, so here we are.

More and more I find I Spend my days Inventing ways To go back to when I had More to say. Before my days were copy/paste, Blankly staring into space On a screen, avoiding my dreams. Where I had passion running through my veins Before I voluntarily put on the chains of Responsibility. Spending my days Arguing over addresses and names, Filling out forms to fill out more. Select/copy/paste. Select/copy/paste. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Nine to five, Mon to Fri, So I can live without feeling alive. It wasn’t always so, But that was a lifetime ago And yet. And yet. A man can dream.

It started as a lot of my work does in the past. I feel a feeling, I get a snippet, and that snippet sits and waits for me to be ready to expand on it. In this case, it was lines 1-5: More and more I find I Spend my days Inventing ways To go back to when I had More to say.

Yes, I’m pretty sure this was a Monday morning. Job satisfaction is pretty low at the minute/month/year, and I’m pretty prone to the old Remember When: when you were younger and freer, didn’t feel so trapped in work, were more active in various areas etc.

Lines 6 and 7 followed on quite quickly before I put the notecard down: Before my days were copy/paste, Blankly staring into space

I liked the idea that copy/paste meant two things to me; that my days are often repetitive unless I put the effort in to adjust, and that my days are literally copy/pasting information from one place to another, and then another, and then another…

I’m less convinced by lines 8-13: On a screen, avoiding my dreams. Where I had passion running through my veins Before I voluntarily put on the chains of Responsibility. Spending my days Arguing over addresses and names, Filling out forms to fill out more.

I often find that the way forward creatively is to take a feeling, twist, and exaggerate to get more interesting language, but in this case it feels too far if only because it feels resentful of my role in life. The chains of Responsibility are real; a husband, dog owner, mortgage payer, future family man, all of which need paying for so I sit at my job that bores the skin off me because taking a risk elsewhere jeopardises all of the above. But I’m not resentful of that, because the rewards are obvious and plenty. I have a wonderful wife, a great dog (but needs more training), a house and a salary. I resent the boredom, and not the responsibility, and so it just feels hollow and fake. Not what I’m trying to convey at all.

I have a similar problem with the last 5 lines: It wasn’t always so, But that was a lifetime ago And yet. And yet. A man can dream.

It’s weak sauce. How my head feels like a poem should end, rather than words I believe in.

The repetitive section though and the two lines after hits something for me, so an initial rewrite would start at least at: More and more I find I Spend my days Inventing ways To go back to when I had More to say. Before my days were select/copy/paste, Select/copy/paste. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Nine to five, Mon to Fri, So I can live without feeling alive.

Not sure that’s totally complete, but it’s already miles better.

Just needs a name.

Desk job?