Writer’s Block, by Arianna Schioldager

There are things I haven’t told you about our life together, about how much I hate this city, this smog, this single file life, driving in cars that move too fast.  There are also things I regrettably have not told you about the writing in my head, yet to be put to paper, left untold like unshorn grass grown wayward and rampant, blades tangled within the other.  I am, at this date, at this crossroads, tangled within myself, an empty crossword, unsure of next steps or basic movements.  I don’t have the words to fill in the blanks, but I promise that the knowledge is there, somewhere, beneath it all.

All I ever wanted was to write and yet this city, this pavement tells me it is impossible here, tells me I have nothing left to say. It cackles raucous catcalls and defamatory jeers at my dreams.  It has sucked the words right from my pen, drank my ink well to wash down its supper.  But I come home to it, every time.

I have indeed, returned home, yet again, from a week away, but my doormat sings no welcome home tune.  It is just rope coil, blank and weathered, not even a duck in the corner or a pot of painted flowers greet my arrival. Just plain, brown rope. Blank. I wipe my feet across it.  Hello friend, I whisper.  We have a lot in common.

I blame it all on this city.  I take no responsibility myself.

I’ve never told you about the summer that I sat on the couch and cried, thick sobbing tears, because I swore I’d never come back here, swore I was gone for good, and yet here I sit and sweat, hair swaddled against the nape of my neck, itching for a new season, a ripe reason to take me far away.  I looked a little cross-eyed that summer, a little pinched in the corners of my eyes; squinting kept the tears at bay.

Keats asked me the other day, “Do you not see how necessary a World of Pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?” I got mad at him and slammed my book.  I don’t want to have to hurt to write. But I am mute.  This feels like the end of a relationship, two people staring blankly, lips tucked up under their teeth to prevent horrid words from escaping; I hate this silence.

So I blame this city for ruining my dreams.  But if I were honest, if I told you the truth – that I never had any dreams to begin with, would this perhaps be worse? I keep my pages tucked away.

So I blame this city, hang all my faults, my inabilities, my defects and my indecisions upon its doorstep, upon its freeways.

And yet, for all my talk, my big chatter, my mud slinging and my blame, I always come home, recursively plagued by differing variations of the same thought.  I’m never coming back here, I tell my friends. I tell my mom. I state my case and plead for my release. I don’t belong here, I scream, and then bang the gavel at my own contempt.  I write defunct apologias for each side.  That is a lie. I do not write. I argue both sides, left brain against right, disconsolate lumps, rhyme against reason, and then wonder why I am stagnant; an immoveable beast lurks beneath my frame.

I could move away forever if I could only take one step; shirk my memories and brush away people, my dog, the coffee shop I love, the latte that wakes me every morning, and the orange blossoms that spring into my view if I open my bedroom doors.

Just a plane ride away, I tell myself, one plane, one ride, and all the words are yours again. Blame is a monster I should want no part of, but I cling to his fur, and I ask him, if not here, then where, and if not now, then when? I have none of the plot, the context, I have no setting or exposition, but I am sure of the conclusion, the solution.

I’m sorry I never told you what you would be dealing with when the birds flew south for the winter. This is just writer’s block, age old and ready to wear at a moments notice.

I will shear these monsters one day soon.  That or wipe my feet, open up a book, hang up my hat and hang it all.