I have started a dozen different poems today.

Don't ask me how many crumpled papers line my floor
Or how many pens I've drained of ink.
Not sure I've even kept count.
'cause maybe if I don't remember,
The ghosts of unfinished drafts won't haunt my dreams tonight.

Knowing me, the pile won't stop growing.
Not as long as ideas keep boiling and roiling between my ears.
Only a lack of thought will freeze my hand and silence my pen.
What a lonely, empty night that would be.

Whatever ends up coming out today
Has at least a few lines in it
And maybe some punctuation.
That's good enough, I think.

The ideas I can't formulate tonight can wait.
Of course, they will be back again to knock against my skull.

What I can always guarantee from this... hobby? Passion? Sometimes plague
Remains, that the struggle will be never ending.
I'll pick up my pen again tomorrow
To try and write another poem and instead
​End up staring at the blank page for a while, before anything even starts to come out.

Hello, my nemesis. It's been a while.
I see you're just as pale and blank-faced as always.
Guess some things never change.


Oh, you're surprised I'm still here?
Did you think that just the sight of you would send me running?
Or freeze me solid before I even picked up a pen?


Well, I'll admit that I've had that reaction to you in the past.
It's true.
But I've decided that I miss our time together.
The ink spilt. The tears. The laughter.


Yes, quite a bit of it has been painful,
and I've definitely lost days of sleep over you...
But I can't let my fear and worry that I'll never be good enough beat me.
And you certainly won't either.


So go ahead.
Glare at me from between your lines.
Hiss at every touch of my pen.
Do everything you can to make me fear filling your blank pages.


You're not going to have much luck though.
I've decided I've got too much to say
to sit here mute at the sight of you.

So 50,000 words is just a hop, skip, and a month away!

I wonder what the weather will be like there...
Clear blue skies, a cloud or two, and nice not-to-cool weather?
I hope so.

It's gonna be a little while 'till we reach there.
So everyone fasten your seatbelts,
plug in your headphones,
and ready those spare pens and snacks!
We're gonna get those words out one way or another this month,
contractions or no.
So three, two one...
​Here we go!

Whenever my fingers start typing or scribbling
I never know what's going to happen

They might drag me down through underground caverns lined with swinging blades
or lead me gently through flowered meadows to the sound of fae in flight

They might decide I'm in for a scare and toss a score of ghouls my way
or drop me neck-deep into a memory that's far beyond my sight

Either way, the urge to type and scribble is always nibbling at my mind
and even when I try to plan
I really never know what's going to happen.

The more ink that I pour from my hands
the thicker they feel, heavy with
a lack of motion, aching
with tendons all stretched taut,
drained of energy.
My stories take
What's freely
given
​them.

I'm still here. Typing.
How am I still on one page?
*computer growls softly*

I dreamed that I wrote last night...
but I woke up to a blank page.

Not sure where the words went
or if they ever appeared at all.

Maybe they faded into the empty text box
stolen away by the techno-fae
to be savored only by them?

Or perhaps the whiteness crashed over them
an avalanche of emptiness
that swallowed them whole.

Either way, I better work harder this time
put up more wards
to guard my words against the dangers
of the world behind my eyelids.

If I stare at the words too long
polish and preen them until my eyes blur
I begin to see through them
into the roaring miasma of undefined meaning below.

When I dip my hands inside
it slides between my fingers without physical sensation
but leaves the lingering thought of confusion behind.

I've spent days lost within it
trying to grasp some understanding.

But the only thing I've learned from all of my searching
is that when I get to this point
it means I really need to sleep.

They're doing it again,
twitching.
Even when I'm beneath my covers,
eyes closed,
dreaming of sleep,
I feel them.

My fingers
dancing along to the tune of my subconscious,
tapping out stories in Morse code
until I pick up a pen or open my laptop.

No matter the time
or the long list of other things I should be doing,
they want to tell tales
and spin rhymes.

The worst part is
that I can't even be angry at them.
Because I could never imagine a world
where I'm not constantly surrounded
with my own stories.