I Used to Be Smart.

You see, the problem is that I devour things.  It has to be horrible to watch.  I’ve never been able to help it.  When I like something, I can’t get enough of it and I devour it.  That’s how I read books that I like.  I plow through them.  I gorge myself on the words until I become fat with it all.  But I take it all in so fast, I devour so much at one time that nothing is permanent.  None of it sticks.  It doesn’t have time.  The beautiful things just get poured over with more beautiful things until I am so inundated that I can’t take it all in.  I am stuff myself, and that’s unfair to whatever I’m devouring.  The words deserve more than that.  They deserve more than the time I give them.

So I feel terrible for devouring things.  I wish instead that I could break off little chunks.  I wish that I could go slow.  I wish that I could just nibble around the edges, giving every beautiful and true thing I find along the way the time and attention it deserves.  I wish I could let the little pieces rattle around in my head until they find a way to stick.

But nothing ever changes.  I keep devouring, and I complain when I am too full of all the good things that I’ve found.