dylan thomas; did he write when he was drunk? did he drink to drown out the words that were drowning him? the intense sharp pain of seeing a bobbing fishing boat, hearing the clip clop of hooves on the cobblestones and knowing them. really seeing, really hearing, having the sensations invade his little Welsh mind and refuse to get out.

you'd drink too if the whole world was pouring in through your eyes and ears. and that's before you get to the bit about the people. and the only way to get it out would be to keep shovelling the shit as fast as you could, into plays poems prose, speeches and declarations, arguments and whispered love, in which you'd try to make a little bubble with you and just this one person, hoping that this one person could be so much that there wouldn't be room for all the world, for which there wasn't room to begin with.
because once you start looking, you can't set limits.
I can't say "I'll write about a cat." because the cat sits on a mat and the mat is in a room and in the corner of a room there's an old man who is in love with a girl of 25 who took his child and went to Rome because she hated Australian bread and Australian women and she was afraid of all that Australian space out there.
and the man has a name and an unattractive half-shaven chin and he's dribbling for fuck's sake.

so I can't write about a cat unless I'm ready for it all.