A captured montage of writing fears

I take the pen to the paper

Ten seconds start counting down

I’ve cut myself off so many times,

ripping piece after piece of paper out of this notepad

that I could origami it into a crown.

And I’ve found excuses

Every nook and cranny bare,

the lowest fruit on the tree picked off.

The stories might sit in my mind,

but my mind and heart and hand just don’t see eye to eye,

yeah–and I cannot force them all to care.

It gets annoying,

feeling my own silence.

When I get asked

“So, do you have anything new?”

“I remember when you were five, you wrote short stories all the time!”

“Writing? Wait, you’re saying its...hard?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be good at this?”

“These words should be flowing out of you.”

Yeah, well, buddy, I’m standing at the back of the room

at a press conference

They handed me the mic

I yelled at the pretentious writer onstage,

staring at her with contempt as she files down her nails.

I have all your questions on my notepad, and I grill her for answers.

She waits for me to finish (that bitch!)

And I know I have her cornered.

With a hairflip, she focuses on me,

and I begin to feel seasick.

Those eyes lined with dark circles and shadows.

At this point, my hands froze.

Her stature, mannerisms and pose.

She slowly pushed her chair back and rose

And walked over to me.

“When we finally come up with an idea, we will gladly let the people know.

Any questions?”

I turn to you now, and tell you the same thing. As we merge back into one person, the writer, the critic, and the silent but vigilant dreamer, we remember that echoing what

our critics say is eventually only going to hinder us.

But the wishful thinking and the itching in our hands for a pen and some paper never ends, does it? Come back in ten years, and I might still be here, trying to find my pen amidst a pile of sofa cushions with an unfinished play on my desk, a novel leaking its contents into my bathtub’s greedy drain, and a lonely orphaned poem in my bed, searching for its mother to come back and claim him.

–every time non-writers ask me what writer’s block (and fear of writer’s block) feels like

#poetry #untiltomorrow #feltcutemightdeletelater #moodypoetry