Split ends

As with
    hair strands,
so with
    ideas.

I feel them pull upon my scalp,
an unruly mess of a wild growth
untended for too long.

I feel them insist
that every branching possibility is important,
every variation worth remembering,
every promise worth keeping,
every love, every poem, every equation

Every sentence—will I even come back to finish the last one?

Split ends happen, they say, when
    ideas
grow to become dry, brittle, and frayed
—the ends resembling an unraveled rope,
which sometimes I feel like at the of mine.

Once split, they say, an
    idea
will only sustain more damage,
if not trimmed on time,
and continue to split all the way to the root.

It feels like inhabiting Borges’ two curses:
The Infinite Library of Split Ends,
where every branching thought is preserved
and, therefore, none can ever be found when needed.
And the Memorioso, who could not let go
of any of his split ends, until he was paralyzed
by the catatonic weight of his hair.

The remedy, they say, is simple,
as already offered to Struwwelpeter
—and as should have been suggested to Rapunzel as well
had she lived at a time of less damselish dependence
on rescues by princes.

Cut. Them.
Start. Over.

But can I dare begin again?
Will my
    ideas
regrow if I cut them?
And even these words
—when I return, if I return—
will they still be mine?

Melih Sener