On Writer’s Block

I write when it gets too difficult to feel. I’ll stare at the screen or the page, and feel paralyzed. Stuck. Confounded. I used to call this writer’s block, but that implies that there are no words here. Instead, my mind is like a tornado of words. Metaphors, paradoxes, and allusions are whipping through a storm of synonyms and syntax. Poetic devices battling each other to get out of the prison they reside in. I can’t even describe this reality without a loose metaphor (or two) falling through the hairline fractures of my skull. Just as I try to catch the words, they slip through the space between each of my fingers.

So when I tell you that I have writer’s block, please understand that I am lying to you. Forgive me, but I don’t know how willing you are to weather the storm with me.

Longer than I admit

I’ve pushed it away so deep down that it’s past my guts. Crunched it down below my feet so I can trample on it. At times, I float on it ever so softly, barely letting my heels graze its surface. Other times I stomp heavily, making the earth quake beneath me. But you see, it’s impossible to deny it. I’ve been exposed by a single person search party trained in illuminating the dark. She saw that I’m not as hollow as I want to be because you’ve left remnants that are nearly impossible to see unless you open me up and shine a flashlight into my chest cavity. There it is. There’s the switch that you’ve left on, slowing draining, and the only way I can turn it off is to reach in past the cobwebs and dust. I’ve stuck my hand inside, and there’s no pulling it out until I say so. I am here and I amready. I have been been ready for longer than I admit.

Take It All Back

Turning back the clock will never stop the series of events 

But the air will feel familiar to a decade ago 

I'll feel it again, but this time I'll step outside my body

I'll float up

Take a look at the grass where you stepped

Where she was buried

I'll speak to you through her and I'll find a way to breathe you in

Keeping you in my lungs forever.

Travel the world to pick up all the pieces of the things that have shattered 

I've always wanted to glue them together 

But the cracks will reveal that it's just my attempts

At holding together the atoms that are meant to be dynamic, spastic, and radical

I'll collect the pieces, put them in a drawer, and know you are there.