Screaming

I read a story a while ago. While reading it, my over-riding feeling was one of horror, like someone watching an accident happen in slow motion. Awful to witness but you can't look away. You're thinking oh my god, someone do something because the sense of helplessness is paralysing. And once I was done reading, I found I couldn't put it out of my mind. It's nothing concrete that you can effectively pin down, just this swirl of feelings in your head that doesn't let up and gives no peace. Phantasmic impressions that delight in eluding you. It was clear the author understood the power of words very well. And once I was done I thought I wish I could write like that.

The thought itself is not new, or even unique. It happens every time I am faced with a blank page. The need to tell a story, and tell it well. Sometimes it drives me crazy, this need. I stare at the words in front of me and it's my handwriting I see, and yet strangely enough they aren't my words at all. They don't feel mine. The thought behind it is mine but the words itself are those of a child just beginning to communicate. So I have to polish and sand, chipping away a word here, a word there. Throwing out everything that is superfluous. Worrying about saying too much, not saying enough. Trusting that ultimately what I feel will interact with the pen I wield and it will be as I ask. That ultimately I can use words not just to a sastisfying conclusion but to paint a picture in the mind that never quite fades.

Just lately my concerns have gotten more basic. Lately I stare at that blank page and find I have nothing to say. Nothing at all. Something that was as easy as breathing has now suddenly become impossible. There's a lack of emotion and a lack of inventiveness that scares me because I don't know the reason behind it. It's like trying to scream when you have no voice. In desperation I turned to my other long-forgotten creative outlet and sketched yesterday, for what just may be the first time in four years and it was awfully mundane. I sat there staring at the end result and trying not to panic. I make no claims of superior skill. My writing, just like my art is mainly for me. Other people may shake their heads at it but it satisfies me, it keeps me sane. I don't want it to go away. I don't want to think about what will be left if it does. A vacuum? A giant black-hole? And while my eyes absently moved over the grey, neatly pencilled wine glass and table, I wondered why. I wondered what happened to screams when you hold them in for too long.