Options

I'm here, forcing myself to write for an entire hour. Not worrying for the speed of light, or the scent of lost opportunity, nor the strangeness. I'm just here: showing up, owning up. Enquiring for words with meaning and with trace, and wondering what life throws at me this time. 

Some sentences sound as if spelled out in grace. Some others are awkward from the minute they launch, and break mid way. Some feel that are not sustained by any strand of imagination, by the literary tradition, that just stop short of the void where their owner pivots. Some are not worth the utterance. 

But the writing must go on, like breathing, like existing, for better or worse. The distance between the back end of the page, of the screen seems larger that life sometimes, but I just have to keep at it, regardless of the questioning that met no answers and just fell unto oblivion back there, where the page dies in. 

These are matters that don't belong to the world, just to the writer. They are not pretty, they are not universal, they are not insane enough to inspire nor to repel, but I've sworn not to leave the page, so I'll keep standing here, as some sort of penitence, perhaps, but with faith as my ally. I could easily hit full stop, but that's just not my style when I have been fighting so hard to be here, to earn a place in front of the page. No, I won't quit now nor never. 

I remember when I had many things to say, when the verbosity swarmed the space between lines, when I could find all those hidden places and anchor myself. Today and for months now that's not happening, but it won't deter me, it won't take away my place, what's mine. I will try harder and work harder, even if I have to teach myself what to do. 

I am ready to flow, I'm not empty, I haven't stopped. I'm just in a state of expectancy, in a realm of figuring out rather than writing it up. And I can't afford to hate it, it's just not an option, imagine that. This is my job, this is my calling, this is myself, and I am looking at her and longing for me the same as usual. I feel that it's been a while, that I've been banished from myself for a long time and that now it all feels different, kind of emptier; I hear the echo, I miss the furniture, I don't recognise the space, it feels almost like moving in somewhere else. 

This is the place I gravitate around and yet I feel so distant from it. But it's an space infinite, it's the ultimate swan's song, there is not end to the silence and no end to the jubilant joy when joy is out. You know that the sentence starting, the cursor blinking, the typewriter carriage hitting a new line can always be the beginning of something great, of a great dance or a symphony, or a small song or a journey. It's like walking and counting your steps, you could be going anywhere as long as you don't stop. 

Yes, writing is like breathing, like looking in, like pursuing your curiosity; and each day you learn a new way that writing is what it is, and you are who you are as long as you keep writing. So don't stop. 

You can wait, you can backtrack and pause, you can collect your thoughts, your speed, your flesh and blood and go on again, always moving forward, always moving, always sensing, always feeling. Never stopping. It's not an option.