Nose under throw rugs, looking for what’s been swept aside; or rustling about in back closets, turning over the unused and out-of-date; or straddling boards in the attic, straining to ascertain new, if not precarious, angles – the writer’s home of choice is seclusion.
You may believe, Dear Reader, that the words are mine to command that I carefully contrive the message form and structure succumbing to my direction, syntax following suit
It has not been my intention to deceive but, you see, I am mere slave to the whim words hold the power, strangle my thoughts, demand expression – they are haunting things, rooted in urgency, and unwilling to bend
I would love to accept praise, pretend a wisdom that is not mine, but words… …well, they are born of some alien seed growing within, nurtured I know not how, and I am merely the vessel through which their staccato voyage unravels
Stubborn as they are, silly things, really – although I dare not say, for they can be vengeful and vile, and I prefer the fluid passage of expression than the painful, tearing, slashing of words – monstrous as they can be I am rendered servant by their insistence
That time, playing in the muck, foot emerging without a boot, hopping and laughing all the way home…
Then, later, on the bus the impact of the car the windshield cracking like a giant spider blood all over the dead lady’s face
All in the past – sunroof open kids riding along, music blaring
But trauma is a spider Arachne reaching into happy places and as much as I speed up to avoid her, fight to disable her attack; she weaves herself new limbs, begins the onslaught anew
And I am stuck in the mud again no longer limber enough to dance my way home in the rain.
(The Car Crash first appeared here in March of 2020. Edited for this version. Image my own.)
Words, like crickets, leap from my mind – chirping pests whose trajectory eludes my dulled reflexes, scuttling around the periphery of my awareness
Harmless, really, in the singular, a cacophony in multitudes threatening to multiply further and destroy any semblance of sanity
I must intuit their rhythm, define the notes in workable phrases, capture the essence of their meaning and inscribe the message before they disappear again.
(Pestilence of Words first appeared on One Woman’s Quest II, October 2016. Edited for this edition. Image my own.)