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Poetry: Writer's Block

philosofe

Updated: May 3, 2022

Glued to your paper is a pen

Stuck within a thick layer of tar.

Your pen, like a leaky pipe,

Spews out the viscid substance,

Soon, the sticky substance will set

Forming a layer of hardened cement

From which you cannot escape.

Frantically, you attempt to grasp at straws,

Slowly bending them to form letters,

Hopelessly morphing words together,

Hoping the brittle sticks won’t snap,

Compensating for the blank page before you.

Even though, the end of the page isn’t far;

Futile nothingness engulfs your brain.

Tar turns to quicksand.

Suddenly, your pen starts to sink;

Delving deep down into your wordless ditch,

Rapidly swallowing you up into the inevitable.

Like a black hole, from which nobody can escape,

Potential dissolves as you clutch your pen,

Desperately trying to wrench it from the paper.

A storm of thoughts crash together;

Like wild waves in the restless ocean,

Merging to form one unobtainable desire,

Standing on the shore, pen in hand,

A monstrous body of water looms above you

And violently breaks over your head,

With the ferocity of a shark’s agonizing bite.

Within the belly of this beast you are safe,

Protected from the raging jaws on the surface.

So you languidly gaze upwards

Letting the gentle water caress your skin.

Sharks dive down and circle around you

Creating a whirlpool to slice your skin like razors.

Even if you wanted to escape, you couldn’t;

But, in the eye of the storm you are untouchable;

Despite knowing you must escape.

Will yourself to wake from this dream

Your one incessant desire engulfs you,

Preventing you from moving,

Leaving you frozen.

Closing your eyes, you hope to drown out desire.

For a moment... there is peace.

Agony follows as your environment collapses.

The wet abyss begins to close in on you

Like it is draining into an imaginary plug.

Shards of water scratch at your skin

Like the claws of the female lion,

Hunting you and leaving you with deep gashes

Turning the deep blue ocean into the Red Sea,

Pressure forces you to fall backwards,

Directly onto the rocky seabed.

Opening your eyes, you find reality.

Realising that you have been flung into your chair,

Too timid to glance around yourself,

You look dead ahead-

All that remains is: a desk,

On top of which, is a single piece of paper;

Within it, lies half of your pen

Still sinking into the puddle of ink of its own creation.

The other half firmly clutched in your hand;

Helpless, you watch as it gradually disappears

Like an endlessly sharpened pencil.

As your pen fades so does your consciousness.

Your eyes begin to gently flutter;

Eventually, they are unable to open.

Briefly, you make a desperate attempt to stay awake;

But soon you succumb to the inviting promise of sleep.

Hours pass; you wake and rest your eyes on a desk.

One singular piece of paper

--But no pen.

Not a physical pen at least.

There it lies within the paper,

Like a leaky pipe creating a puddle of ink.

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