Len Gurts Being Watched By Me

I saw him across the room, scribing, in a blitz of metaphor.
We did not exist yet. This room did not exist. It never

needed to. “Are you sure?” I said to myself. But not
to him: I thought I could write the most incredible things too, but was it worth

the guilt? As I saw him slipping, the mania
dragging him along. I could say nothing; I could write

nothing about it, as nothing
can be said about such things, as it is not

the power but the talker
of it that gets people’s backs up. But I did want to say, “Leave!

Leave the library! Please! Put that pen down! Breathe!
While you let as much as you can go past

as you exit, else it may come true on a darker night.” But how cringe does that sound!
My own eyes roll. I looked at my own paper then: empty and safe.

But then what shall I do? What shall I do? What shall I do? What shall I do?
What shall I do? What shall I do? What shall I do? Because he is dying.

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