Don’t Try

unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.

The words ‘Don’t Try’ are emblazoned across Charles Bukowski’s tombstone.

These words have inspired numerous essays, tattoos and arguments. I have a t-shirt with Buk’s face and the words ‘Don’t Try’ in classic typewriter font below his image. This shirt has elicited many strange looks and questions: what does it mean? Don’t try what, exactly? Most people assume it’s some sort of nihilistic message or mistakenly think that Bukowski was the poster child for apathy.

Some find it insulting; we all struggle to write sometimes, or battle to shape the words on the page to match our vision. That’s part of the process, and that is not what this quote is about. I was told once that this idea is offensive to people who draft and edit and polish a piece into perfection.

My personal belief is that you know if you are meant to write. You can’t help it, you can’t fight it. You might lack discipline, or you might not be in the right headspace to let the words out, but if you are meant to write then they will come. They will flow out of you and you will be compelled to do it, on some level.

It doesn’t mean that it’s easy, it doesn’t mean that it’s not work. Ask any writer who earns their living through words – it is not always simple. What matters is the need, and the act of writing. The ritual of putting pen to paper, or watching as your fingers fly over the keyboard, determined to fill up the white space.

Write. Write because you need to, because without it you are like a dam about to burst.

Write because giving shape to words is your way of moulding, perfecting, creating.

Write because it is a fire inside you, ready to scorch your fingers if you don’t let the words out.

unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.