the demon

on my shoulder

tells me what I should write…

He’s as bad as my 4th grade English teacher

“No. That’s not where I want the comma to go.”

And I do whatever he says,

or he won’t let me sleep.

George, is sophisticated.

He smokes Cuban cigars, that have been in storage for 50 years

He complains about our Word processor

He misses the old type face, of a typewriter

Apparently,

the last three humans he tormented

were writers too

He specializes in writers, or would-be writers

until their words are scrambled and as dead

as chickens that were never born.

Cluck. Cluck.

But he’s having difficulty with me

because

the worse I write

the more I feel like

I can write whatever I want

because

the least published writer

is the freest writer

with no editors, to tell him what to do

with no homicidal fans, with nothing better to do

than bring a bomb to his house

and demand

better quality

(this happened to Stephen King, by the way)

Now my literary demon is playing video games

on my console, I haven’t touched, since I began to type, years ago

I promised him

a letter of recommendation

to say a few good words

to Satan, on his behalf.

I will fool the king of contracts

cheat the deceiver, at his own game

He twists language

like a liar

Well,

I’m a fiction writer.