Always I had promised myself that I would "never ever ever" get involved with a writer. Writers are difficult, needy, emotional, fucked up. I knew, because I was one and am one and most of my friends were writers and more, I taught writing and was constantly surrounded by writers since my occupation has always been in publishing, I was and am constantly exposed to other authors. I worried that because I knew from my own experience that writers can spin tall tales, that this would carry over to our personal life, and while I knew that I was not and am not a liar in my every day life, I wasn't naïve enough to believe that everyone else shared my views. I knew that my definition of lying and deceit were simplified, stripped to the bone in many ways - white lie, black lie, fib, omission, half-truths, "forgetting to tell", the "it wasn't important" and so on are not differentiated in my view. A lie is a lie is a lie.

All deceit is hurtful. Just say no. I should know - I have been deceitful in my life. I have done awful things and to my horror, I was good at it. Once upon a time, I found myself lying to someone I deeply loved with considerable ease. No, it wasn't "easy", but it wasn't that hard either. We find our convenient rationales, make up excuses, anything to not feel the guilt that deep-down, we feel anyway.

So live and learn . It was one thing to spin stories for publication or for the fun of it on paper. It was another thing entirely to bend and stretch reality in such a way that you conceal who you really are - that by your deceit, you prevent your spouse or your family or friends from the truth. They are people who need the truth in order to make an informed decision about your involvement in their life. I may lie in poetry, or I may not, depending on the poem, but always, I live honestly, or I do my best to live an honest life, which is all anyone can do, and though I hate people who say this, we are fallible, we are human, and we screw up in the most spectacular ways. Better to try to confine this to fiction. It is the best we can hope for..

I have received long emails from complete strangers who read my work and then think they understand me. It tells me, The poem was effective, but does this complete stranger know me? Absolutely not. Poetry, at its best, can be seductive and convincing. It is what we strive for. That there will be strangers who then think they understand the poet seems to be an occupational hazard, and the better you become, the more refined your art, the more likely this is to be the case. It never occurs to the reader that the work that appears to be so revealing may simply be a layer of protection; a misleading sign-post that serves as misinformation to redirect the reader away from the actual truth, turning them instead to the truth of the poem (and entirely different matter).