Except.

Pursue the authentic—decide first

what is authentic,

then go after it with all your heart.

Your heart, that place

you don’t even think of cleaning out.

That closet stuffed with savage mementos.

Don’t sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth

or worry if we’re all eating cereal for dinner

again. Don’t answer the telephone, ever,

or weep over anything at all that breaks.

Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons

in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life

and talk to the dead

who drift in through the screened windows, who collect

patiently on the tops of food jars and books.

Recycle the mail, don’t read it, don’t read anything

except what destroys

the insulation between yourself and your experience

or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters

this ruse you call necessity.

Louise Erdrich, from "Advice to Myself"

Thanks, Jess.