(and everything you never will)

I’m seeing a lot of content from a number of reading, writing, booktok, day-in-the-life, etc. accounts lately addressing the parasocial nature of being vulnerable on social media. So, let’s take a second to address what is and isn’t included in any given poem or piece of writing I post.

Included: Experience & Emotion / Omitted: Context & Explanation

Simple enough, right? No? Oh, you still want to pick apart my words to figure out exactly who I’m talking about and when it happened and what size the paper towel roll was and how I’ve never done dirty talk and which coffee shop I was sitting in and where he lives and why the ending isn’t more clear. I’ve gotten Not Gonna Lie questions like “why aren’t you over him yet” and “does he know you still want him”, DMs like “can’t figure out if this is about me or not”, and insinuations that everything I write is literal in the comments section. So, this feels like a good time to say…

Every word I write is both a truth and a lie.

I’m not saying that to be shitty. It’s genuinely how I approach my craft. What I strive for is to situate minute details and hyper-specific emotional scenarios within universal human experiences. From the outside, that can look like withholding information or rehashing old arguments or exaggerating parts of my life. It has a purpose, though, and it’s what makes my work meaningful to me.

A Non-Exhaustive List of Common Misconceptions

“You’re still in that same situation/flirtationship?” No, but something probably reminded me of it. One thing I excel at as a creative (if I do say so myself) is pattern recognition – connecting seemingly disparate dots between relationships, feelings, and people. My own mistakes and attractions aren’t immune to this, so it’s not uncommon for me to draw comparisons between current and former flames or go back to something from the past and explore a new take on it.

“You need to move on.” What a lot of people don’t realize is that many of the flings and flirtationships I write about never actually came to fruition. One telecom orgasm (or two), a few text-based declarations of love (explicit or implicit), and trading real names (or numbers) doesn’t mean anything when it comes to closure (or completion). Hot Take: It’s much harder to get other something you never really got to have. Feelings and desire linger longer in the unknown. Plus, why would I choose to stop picking at something that still produces such promising poetry?

“You’ve never done that? / You’ve actually done that?” If the only thing you’re looking for in my work is a glimpse into my sexual experiences, escapades, routines, preferences… you’re doing literary citizenship wrong. Maybe I have done it. Maybe I read it in a book. Maybe I did it in a dream or fantasy or self-insert fanfiction. Maybe I’ve never done it but always wanted to. Maybe it just fit the rhyme, rhythm, or vibes of the piece. All I can say for sure is that I try really hard not to misrepresent anything, so I’m usually not going into detail on things I know nothing about.

“I know what you want/need.” The things I want would make most men tuck their tales between their legs and sprint into the forest – believe me; I’ve seen the tracks – and also they can change on an hourly basis. Even if I were to write a poem in one minute and have it posted the next, my wants and needs would’ve changed by the time you read it. If you were following my smutty shorts, it was the same with those. Some themes may be consistent, and I may be inviting similar reactions across different works, but it cannot be stressed enough that YOU STILL DON’T KNOW ME.

“I see myself in this.” / “Is this about me?” Does the shoe fit, baby doll? If so, great. If not, sucks for you. Either way, you’re almost certainly missing something. Poets write about other poets all the time, so it’s not totally off base to assume someone is appearing in my work. But my trademark is getting close enough to real details to make you feel called out without providing enough verifiable, identifiable, undeniable evidence for someone else to be able to trace it back to you. I’ve never tagged anyone in a poem we hadn’t previously agreed to, and I never will. [Fun Fact: That’s how I scared off my last serious flirtationship. I posted a stanza on my story that said something like “I need a pic of your [explicit] and I’m dangerously close to tagging you in a poem about it”. He freaked, I told him it absolutely was not a serious threat, and he was gone in a puff of digital smoke by morning.]

TL;DR – When it comes to my work… assume nothing, feel everything, and don’t take it personally unless I give you a reason to. (And if it bothers you that much, you can always ask. I might just answer 😉)

-Love, Claire 💜