Lately, I cannot seem to write.

Knickerbocker Station (M) — photographed by Charley

Lately, I wonder where all the words went.

They’ve flown into rivers that I once considered oceans.

I held nothing but all of the words that have ever existed;

perhaps all of the writing I’ve created is merely just a space where I pick my wounds long enough that I become skin from the past.

Lately, I cannot seem to write.

How might I find the beauty of suffering in the well-being?

I don’t have time.

My grief is building up.

I wonder if I will ever be a person in the face of another.

Lately, I wonder where all the words went.

Can’t seem to recycle the same patterns I have once stuck to like PVA glue.

Swore that I was not holding on to an identity built around gifted troubles.

Lately I cannot seem to explain.

I am tired of holding everything I have once been.

And for a while, I wrote.

Wrote till the dent of my ring finger turned as red as my eyes were. Gloating my ability to express, to pour the words, not into puddles. But perfectly cloudy analogies.

Pages of self-hatred wrapped up with a cute little bow, to offer my wisdom.

And for a while, my mind was never truly mine.