What is it that I so desperately need to write? Is there a novel lurking there somewhere? Be there some fiction that demands ink? Not a poem, for sure, nor a song, much less a book or an opera.

But could there be, perhaps? Maybe something worth the paper it’s on? Maybe a few lines someone will want to read?

I won’t know, really, till I sit myself down, till I break out the pen and I open the notebook. I won’t know, till I’m scribbling furiously, my penmanship barely legible, the letter slanting rather than standing, the spaces uneven, the lines askew, dots and commas flying in all directions.

What is it I so desperately need to write? Only the words bouncing around in my head. Only vague shapes poking around in my heart. Only the aches in my bones and the pains of my muscles.

Desperately I need to draw them out, and only a pen in my hand will do. Only a pen scratching recklessly across a page can draw it all out, purge it from my limited physical being. Desperately I need all these things banished from me, inked on paper so I can see, examine, ponder and wonder, what in fuck’s name is all this? Desperately, so I have room for breath, for thought, for pain and love and joy.

Let me write, so I can breathe, and then maybe I can stop being so goddamned tired, and maybe I can keep going. Let me write, let me go off and wander, so that I can come back and be anything I’m needed to be, needed for. Let me write, and maybe I can stop being so goddamned melodramatic and desperate.

Oh God, what a fucking relief to write this all down.