How Stories Exist

The novelist, the narrativist, the game
Of constraining what can or can’t happen next,
Body alone, other bodies, machine prompts

Constructing another scenario full
Of more or less expected kinds of events,
More or less expected kind of characters,

In some sequence for someone else to unfold,
Many someone elses, over and over
Again, lives life with a long shot at respect.

But the real action isn’t in inventing
Or the experiencing of the template.
The real action is the internalizing,

Body by body, of handfuls of templates.
Everywhere, all the time, bodies are telling
Stories of themselves assembled from templates

Provided or forced by the narrativists,
Telling themselves overlapping epic bits.
This is the story of how stories exist.