The first draft is almost always completely scrapped, 

reworded, reworked, refined, 

crumpled, torn up, and tossed away.

The first pancake never turns out quite right––

does the first child?

Everyone remembers their firsts:

first steps, first kiss, first love, 

the first man on the moon.

No matter how much you rework,

or how much you try to forget,

the first draft will always live on 

silently, in whatever is left.

If you could go back in time

to before the first draft was even started 

and correct all those choices you made

before you could read the finished manuscript,

rethink, repeat, retread those first steps––

Would you?

And would you be the same if you did?

Rebuilt and refashioned, like Theseus’ ship––

is it the same now as it always was? 

Or would you be unrecognisable without 

the scraps of that first draft storyline you lived?

Life is more like a pancake than a manuscript, really, 

except you run out of batter after you burn the first one. ∎

Words by Amy Pay. Art by Lizzie Stevens.