Aside from the fact that I’m lazy, there is one main reason why I write short poems and vignettes.
I was studying out under a dogwood on my college campus. When I got up to go to lunch, I found that an ant had sunk in the last drops of coffee in my coffee cup. It struggled to escape, but was trapped by the coffee’s surface tension. I broke the tension and let it go.
In the lunchroom, I told this story to a friend who was struggling with anorexia. Somehow — don’t ask me how — that story created a breakthrough for her, a step of recovery.
You never know how painting a little picture, telling a little story, will break the surface tension for a struggling friend.
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