I’ve been told I should write more.
Sometimes the voice is my own, rattling around inside my media-consumer brain, fighting to tap the creative flow that it knows exists locked away somewhere.
“Sometimes”? Most of the time. Most of the time, the voice is my own. We have the best conversations.
Why is it that when I’m thinking, the thoughts flow endlessly? Words materialize, phrases condense, clauses link together effortlessly, building paragraph upon coherent paragraph to house every miniscule shred of meaning—no matter how insignificant—that’s conjured up by the whims of my mind.
I just realized that I picture my mind like a medieval castle. I don’t think that’s a compliment.
But then I grab a pen, I flip open that disheveled, discolored, disappointing notebook to find...
so many empty pages.
Where are the words, the phrases, the clauses? Where is the meaning? Maybe the homes I’ve built them on the top floor are so comfortable, so familiar, so safe—they don’t want to leave, do they?
If they do leave, if they pour down my nerves into the infinitesimal twitchings of fingertips, forcing that pen in ghastly scratching sweeps—
The pen is so loud.
Does it sound like yelling to anyone else? Maybe it’s whispering. Whispering secrets to the page, secrets that I didn’t think I wanted anyone to know. Am I the one writing? Is it my brain? Then why am I setting these thoughts free?
They’re mine.
All those complaints, ramblings, egocentricisms, meanderings, philosophies—I don’t want people to hear them.
People don’t want to hear them.
People don’t want to hear me.
People don’t want me.
“There’s the rub.”
I definitely don’t deserve to quote Shakespeare. Sorry, Bill.
Truth is, ink and blood both stain the page. They are both so painful to set flowing, and so hard to stop. They both spill vulnerability to the world with every ounce seeping into the cold, empty fibers.
They both scream. “Here is my weakness. Gaze upon it. Relish it. Share it.”
They whisper. “Please don’t make me hurt again.”
What is a writer but a masochist who believes his own pain to be more beautiful than all the rest? A masochist and a narcissist. What a beautiful paradox.
So many twisting thoughts. One is louder than the rest.
One is always louder than the rest.
I should write more.