One of my friends asked me towards the end of last year to find my words, if I could, and use them for solace, and sense and wonder. It turns out I couldn’t and for that I’m sorry.

Amongst other things, I am full of other people’s words and stories and books and ideas. They are a burden and my own solace. To escape them, there was nothing for it but violence. I cut these words up, scribbled over them, rearranged them, or erased them completely to shift their meanings and upend their intentions.

Other people’s words and sentences are now mine. They’ve been co-opted sometimes uncomfortably, and messily into poetry, or poetic nuggets of something like truth. Some are twee, or strain at mysteriousness, others are more substantial. But they exist. They are mine now.

I post them on Instagram, and it it seems there are many of us hunting down phrases to wrest from old books, putting used words into new positions.

I think what else can Instagram be for? But now I’m having an idea of how some could fit together, and perhaps even form a narrative.

We’ll see how it goes.