We took a red pen
To the parts of ourselves
That we weren’t all that proud of

We slashed and crossed out
Our typos and errors
Until the scratching fell in tune
With our still beating hearts

We saw all our flaws
The gaps in character
The faulty dialogues

Rewrite, revise, and edit
That’s what they always said
But how much material did we lose
When we listened

The color of their eyes
In the early morning sun
Marked irrelevant

We scribbled out
Whole paragraphs
And trashed entire
Chapters

Hopes and dreams soaring above us
On wings of laughter
Marked unnecessary

We sat there in our chairs
Until our spines ached
And until the morning sun
Came glaring through

In the end, we saw the final product
As better, as an improvement
It wasn’t

So caught up in the idea of perfection
We lost those sparks of genius
Time to put the cap back on
The damage has been done