Restless and laboring
Eyes open in bed
“I’ll die”
Thought the Toy Maker
“If I don’t write this down”
So he wrote
Wrote until his hand hurt
And his sweat smudged the ink
An almost flawless plan
But something was wrong
Words said one thing
Letters another
Were the serifs too desperate?
Was the kerning indecisive?
He started again
Injecting curiosity and confidence
Rounded corners and vertical lines
Chiseling grinding
Rejecting refining
“I won’t stop” he’d say
“Until it says what I mean”
Restarting again and again
Obsession boiled
Years passed
Until an old man
Alone and bent
Simply wrote “boy”
And Pinocchio leapt off the page
-T. Weeks
Life Immense 