Friday, January 05, 2007

A Stretch of Desert

“I want to get away. I want to fly away. Yeah, yeah.”

Someone has just had a cigarette in the bathroom and then tried to cover it up with some kind of spray. Who does he think he’s kidding? I’m sitting on the Lucky Star watching black Connecticut stream by my window like a David Lynch film: obscure, occasionally breathtaking, and plotless. I want to write something meaningful, interesting, and cathartic, but nothing is coming to me. And I’ve been doing this long enough to know better than to force it. Like a young sibling keeping up, trying to impress an older one, when I force it, the piece comes off gangly and awkward in its self-importance. Read me. Read me, now. I am profound and you must weep! Well, maybe it comes off more absurd than anything else.

“I hope you meet someone your height so you can see eye to eye, with someone as small as you.”

It can’t happen that way. I’ve been doing this long enough to know when it’s right - that feeling of flow, of not being sure where it’s headed, but liking the words as I see them tumble out after having birthed themselves, and trusting that the final creation, the completed piece, knows what it’s doing better than I ever could. That’s the feeling I thirst for as much as a dry mouth thirsts for a sip of water or a shriveled passion thirsts for a shot of tequila. Yeah. There. What I just wrote. See what I mean? I’m not sure the flow is in me today.

“You’re spring to me. All things to me. Don’t you know you’re life itself?”

Meanwhile, through my headphones pumps words from writers who’d had better days than the one I’m having now. I’m swimming in an aural sea of meaning, without a drop to drink. I couldn’t resist that last bit. I’m feeling self-conscious now. Feeling the pressure to produce - to keep your attention, feeling ashamed that I’m posting this dreck. I mean, shut up woman, if you don’t have something to say. But I can’t stop. This desert could stretch forever if I allowed it. And I’m prone to dry skin and dehydration. The last thing I need is to sit here like flour. Or decay like a flower, depending on which frame of reference you prefer. Pick one. I’m having a hard time doing the work for you today. Sorry.

“There’s nothing left to do tonight but go crazy on you.”

But I can’t stop. I press these keys for a way out of this desert and I drag you with me. Soon, it will rain again, and then, a round of shots for all!

1 comment:

Husher7242 said...

Nooooo. Sorry, this is not dreck. If you want dreck, you'd go to my blog. Besides, sometimes it's better to be funny than profound.