Boustrophedon

There’s a splinter underneath the thumbnail on my left hand that I watch while I write.
It runs parallel with the lines on the paper and provides stability I need at this height.

It is of no nuisance to me but more of a muse, one I’ll exploit and the rest I’ll abuse.

It’s an anonymous brand of timber that aims to link a pencil to my fingers, one of which I hold too tight.

Stubborn and still from time to kill, it burrows deep to starve my brain from ideas I thought of along the way.

Fittingly though, it mimics me, plants a seed then briefly leaves.

I’d let it stay, I’d let its roots tangle with my veins and I’d water us both with rain.

After all, what kind of host would I be to tear out the roots embedded in me?
And for nothing more then just to see how long it’d survive as just a tree.
The truth in fact is that we’d both be petrified if not for it, if not for me.

Been some years since that splinter lodged itself under the thumbnail on my left hand, which I only use to write.