" VERSO 33.2

What part of this are you letting go, the clerk asks, because it seems to me none of this belongs on the dock with me. The clerk is being clerical, she doesn't want to handle every passing stray thought of the author, let alone every feeling. Every feeling need not be considered, else there would be no room left in the world. No room. The author finds it hard to rise in the mornings, whatever she is carrying lies as a boulder on her forehead when she opens her eyes, though it is invisible to anyone else. The clerk thinks it is mere self-indulgence. The author agrees. But what do you do with a feeling like that? It is certainly an embarrassment, to look at a recumbent discarded mattress and feel homesick, or as if one had lost some great love. "

― Dionne Brand , The Blue Clerk: Ars Poetica in 59 Versos