It's 1:36AM and I'm supposed to be writing. I have a short story that has fought me every paragraph of the way to the end that I have re-written four times. I firmly believe I have it where I want it but for the last 1/4.
It's time for the Big Dramatic and Violent End that leaves the reader wondering. It's time for that twist we all love to read.
And I'm blocked.
I don't have a fucking clue how to finish this thing and it's supposed to be sent off in less than 24 hours.
My brain failing me. It's not coming up with something awesome. Sure, it's coming up with all kinds of other bullshit. But it's just not creating new things. And I really can't fail this time. I can't.
I took a shower to see if that helped and it didn't. Nothing has thus far. Usually I make ice cream at these junctures but I haven't done that because the cream I bought is too thin. It lacks the needed amount of milk solids and the dairy doesn't really give a shit.
Why not? They get cream, and they sell it to their biggest client--some butter maker. The private shits like me buy what is left in the vat. Since December, the butter maker has figured out a way to scoop up or suck up all of the milk solids from the vat for themselves, leaving behind a thin cream. That's great for them because they buy the same volume with less waste but it sucks for me.
It sucks for the little old ladies who buy cream there for their pies.
That means I have to cook down and reduce the cream base more than usual. Maybe add more dry non-fat milk, too.
I can solve that problem but I'm not able to solve this writer's block.
There's something else, too. Something most of you don't know. It's not a secret but it's not something I talk about much.
I'm a much better poet than I am a fiction writer. Poetry was my thing from the beginning and one of the first things I ever got published. I'm a damned good poet when I put my heart and brain into it. And for some reason I haven't in years.
That urge is there once again. It's more than an urge. Urge isn't the right word.
The best way I can describe it is when you are with a woman, and she's leaning against you, her back resting against your chest, her head leaning back against your shoulder. You can smell her hair. You can smell her skin.
You put your hands on top of her hands, fingers intertwining. You look down at her face and it is serene. She is comfortable with you in that moment. You. She wants to be with you. Of all the people in this world, she has chosen you. You know all the shit wrong with you and at the moment, you don't want to correct her and tell her she's fucking up. Instead, you want to lean down and softly kiss her on her neck, just below her ear, just in that right spot. You want to put your lips to her skin and gently kiss her as she closes her eyes and allows herself to be taken with that moment.
That is the urge I feel. The need to press my lips against her skin and make her feel, and know, that at the single moment in time, there is nothing else I'd rather do, no place I'd rather be, and nobody else I'd rather be with, than her.
And no, I haven't left my apartment in days. I don't have a reason to.
But that's not everything. Not the writing, or the thin cream, or the poetry.
There's something else.
When love is drained from a heart it leaves behind a residue. You can't remove it. You can't scrub it loose. It lingers behind.
So you think of them. You think of that person you cared about no matter how toxic they were. No matter how bad of an idea it was. No matter how badly they hurt you without a care, as if you were a paper airplane on a rainy day just as the sun started to poke through. Your thoughts still to go them. And you feel their absence as if it were still the first day of it being over.
When someone is the first person you think of in the morning and the last person you think of at night for months on end, they leave a mark on your soul. You know you didn't leave a mark on their soul. You know you weren't nearly important enough to them to do that. You were nothing more than cardinal on their lilac tree just outside their kitchen window. Sure, they saw you, and maybe even watched your for a minute or two, but by lunchtime, they will have totally forgotten you even existed.
But I haven't left my apartment in days. People are worried about me again. I'm gaining weight, my levels are totally out of balance, and I simply don't feel engaged enough in this reality to do much about it. Other people are just shadows in the fog and they don't see me reaching out to them.
Six days ago, my heart rate was so erratic it was causing a lot of pain. I made a mental note to take my potassium gluconate pills then forgot about it. It got worse. Finally, there was the fluttering that wouldn't stop. And the wallops from side to side, as if my heart was a tennis ball inside my chest, and it was trying to get out. Or a mis-firing motor with crossed plug wires.
Three days ago, I crossed my arms in front of my chest, gasped for air, and waited. If it passed, I told myself, I'd take my potassium. Within just a few minutes of taking it, I felt fine. Great, even. But my chest hurt like hell for about half the day after.
Shadows in the fog. The smallest light is blinding the and only in darkness can I relax.
After this short story gets done (and I think I know how to finish it) I'm going to write poetry once again. It's time. And I need to. I can feel it being My Path.
I'm going to finish this short story before I go to bed. I think I know what to do and how to do it. Once that is submitted, things are going to change. They have to.
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