Sentences

As you know, writers must edit their work. In the process, sentences get deleted. Our dirty little secret is where those sentences go after being rejected. The truth is they go nowhere. They hang around our apartments, grousing about not being appreciated. They distract us with stupid criticisms of the sentences we do use. They steal the covers at night. When you're on the phone they get into your cabinets and drawers, creating havoc.
They make snarky remarks about your friends. Sometimes, out of desperation, they will rearrange themselves, hoping you'll like the new version better. Mostly they grow old and wither away, pleading for another chance.
Abandoned sentences are the single biggest cause of guilt among writers.
If rejected sentences are like lonely dogs, rejected poems are indifferent cats. They go right on being poems, ignoring their status, sitting around doing impressions of other poems, making no demands, certainly not demeaning themselves.
I have writer friends, some who read my blog, like Maya and Harriet and Mike. I have tried to Fed Ex some of my rejected sentences to them, hoping they'll find a place for these word jumbles in their own writing. Instead, I get angry e-mails reminding me they have rejects of their own to deal with and maybe we could effect a trade. That defeats the whole purpose. Frankly, I think my rejects are better written than theirs. But that's between you and me.