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Journal Notes—Reality



The kind of job you just get poorer the longer you stay in it.


Money woes, passion throes and fungus toes: that’s what adults are made of.


Writer’s block a kind of hibernation or dreaming state, what others call living.


The butterfly accepted the bird’s invitation to fly and got eaten.


The angelic look is one of dying.




Morgan Harlow

levelheaded: Journal Notes—Reality


The title of this week’s poem by Morgan Harlow allows for the piece’s aphoristic form. Our speaker quips on the often strange, sometimes humorous, and sometimes tragic act of living.


The fact that these thoughts are understood to have been written under the cover of a personal diary gives them even more weight. The speaker talks honestly to him or herself; we get to eavesdrop. While the reality presented here could be attributed to nearly anyone, it is especially pertinent for those who have dedicated their lives to writing.


Writing is often (humorously/sadly) “The kind of job you just get poorer the longer you stay in it.” Grimly, living itself, a.k.a. reality, can sometimes be described through the line above. In a similar sense, it’s silly yet devastating to think of adult existence as little more than the sum of financial concerns, occasional moments of passion, and toenail fungus.


For the speaker, writing is an opportunity to steep him or herself in reality, to confront the hard truth. Perhaps the biggest take away from these notes—in the small space of a single sentence, in a single instant, reality can change. We live in a world where the butterfly takes flight only to be eaten, and “The angelic look is one of dying.”



– The Editors