Sometimes it's easy to write

Sometimes it's easy to write.

Sometimes, words flow like a waterfall, I tell myself. Sometimes I’m able to step up to my computer, pick up a piece of paper and a pen, and let the ideas that crowd my mind escape. I will let them march in orderly rows, directly to where they need to be, filling in the gaps that were never perfectly filled in my mind, perfectly explaining the story threads that I had never been able to articulate. I tell myself that the words will flow like this, that I’ll be able to sit down and start typing, and I’ll stop only when I realize that hours have passed, that the light outside is dimming, that I’ll have to start lighting candles to full up the space that the day has vacated and the night has not filled. I’ll be able to write continuously, smoothly. I’ll be able to remember everything that my teachers have told me to keep in mind, but not let it overwhelm me. Try to write something that can’t be filmed, who or whom, always keep your verb tense constant, what makes a character human.

The truth is, I can’t. I’ll start writing, and the words that had been holding their places, pushing and shoving like children waiting for an amusement park to open, like middle aged women waiting for shopping to start on black friday, like the dying…. I start writing and these same words stall, the letters tripping over each other, coming out in the wrong order, the meaning escaping me, the symbolism, the hope, the dreams, the ideas, the plans, suddenly scrambling away, like a forgotten metaphor. The time slipping away, staring at an intimidating. Blank page. Staring at me, not moving, not judging, and somehow that silence that comes with the clicking of other’s keyboards is the most terrifying thing of all. The silence that comes when your own mind is the only thing that has stilled, that has become silent.