Writer's Block.

I hate how the light bounces off

This sparse white sheet

Which thirsts for words

That may never come.

How funny would it be

If it turned around

And slapped me in the face

For wasting its time with false promises?

Time. There’s that dreaded word again

Creeping up my skin

Like an insidious snake

Preparing to strike

Me into senselessness.

Everything affronts my nerves tonight –

The whir of the fan,

The shadows it casts

On its vigil around my battered ceiling;

The grunts down the hallway

As a sweaty stranger preys

On daddy’s little princess;

The unruly strands of spray-dyed hair

That sweep across my brow,

Stealing my vision.

Where is the madness promised to us?
That little spark to reanimate

The rotting remains of intellect?

I will trade my soul

For a few sorry rhymes,

Spill blood and sweat

As sacrifice

To conjure words

From emptiness.

They tell me to settle down,

Find a nice young boy

And ruin his life;

Hang the apron-noose

Around my neck

And slip

Into a life

Of picket-fenced perfection.

They’re joking, of course

But on nights like this

Of empty bottles and double vision

I almost believe them.

If my mother should see me now

She’d tilt her head and sing

Into this abyss of shattered dreams

That old refrain –

“I told you so.”

The words will haunt me

Till I die,

Echoing into

The afterlife.

Yet something in me still persists,

For ego is a feral beast

And only if my pen would write,

Some lofty tale I’d bring to life –

A legend whispered long ago

Of dragon-slaying or of woe,

A pretty damsel in distress

Whose charming knight is put to test,

A wily temptress in disguise

Brewing potions for a price.

And just when I have stalled my fears,

The magic kingdom disappears,

My words dry up,

My prose runs thin

And old foe silence

Creeps back in.

If you should see me by myself

On nights like these,

Please walk away.

This cross is mine to bear alone;

I risked too much, I should’ve known

That fickle fancy’s not my friend.

But still I hold this idle pen,

Praying for a miracle,

To scribble through

Life’s sorry test,

Not knowing that

My muse is dead.

Writer's Block.

Maya pushed away her pen in annoyance. The roll of parchment before her lay stark and staring. She had been sitting at the table for the better part of an hour, willing the words to spill out like they did, but they never came.  An assortment of soiled tissues sprawled out around her as silent witnesses to the alarming quantity of coffee she had swallowed and spilled in equal measure.

But even the caffeine buzz had failed her today, leaving her restless and distracted. She drummed her fingers in a sporadic rhythm and stared ahead, her eyes glossed over, seeing nothing.  Somewhere in the distance a stale love ballad droned on, interspersed with the lifeless chatter of the dilapidated coffee shop.

Maya shook her head for the umpteenth hour and turned towards the frosted window. Outside, the empty winter landscape echoed the quiet desolation of her barren mind. Spring had slipped by stealthily that year, taking with it as a parting gift the final breath of her creative spirit. She had tried to reclaim what was rightfully hers but it was too little, too late. As the months rolled by, the world she knew and loved grew grey and insipid and execrably uninspiring. The flowers looked moldy, the songbirds were tone-deaf and the sky had lost its pallor. Growing desperate, she forced upon herself nights such as these when she would put pen to paper and wait for a miracle.

So far, it had proved to be an exercise in futility. The words never came; and even when they did, they were halting and jarred, like indecipherable human whispers across a disturbed telephone connection. For a while Maya put on a brave face, struggling to weave magic out of phrases that did not fit together, till she could no longer ignore the elaborate lie of her sorry prose, till it became physically nauseating to summon from within words that had been long since lost to her. Her imagination had locked her out and she was too dispirited to infiltrate its defences.

                                                                                                                                      

To be continued...