writer's block

A yawning owl and a layer of dust separate me from something great. I am a little field mouse wondering through a maze. This is unnatural. The owl picks me up by the scruff of my neck, his wing feathers pointed and closeted like a mole. This is unnatural. His eyes are so large they don’t even seem like eyes, more like great expanses of space, like the everything that exists between the “she loves me” petal from the “she loves me not” petal. In fact, that is exactly what those dark spheres look like, absolutes. On one edge there is ‘yes’ and on the other ‘no’ but I cannot look into his eyes and see both ‘yes’ and ‘no’. There is too much space; I cannot comprehend it all. In fact, these eyes are so dense it registers as nothing. Nothing can come close to encompassing the everything that he reveals to me. He knows this too. I’m just a field mouse. This is unnatural, yes? I should be eating and procreating. Instead I’m here, wondering what it is the owl sees. He dangles me in front of his strange eyes. “now, try, try to see the whole picture”. I sneeze. I’m nervous. Is he going to eat me? He puts me back into the maze. “or are you destined to run this rat race for the rest of your life?”

I’ve been unable to write recently and the thought of not writing frightens me. I hate to accept that the fact is sometimes things don’t flow the way you want them to. Perhaps there isn’t enough adversity in my life…a tsunami plays over my mind and I regret instantly my silly suggestion. But I don’t believe such fantasy can actually come to fruition. I have not, however, decided if one can truly bend a spoon with her mind. I’ve tried and the only result I’ve noticed is a splitting headache. What does that say about my mind, when a spoon can scoop around its edges and whip it into submission?

How many books are devoted to learning to write? There must be thousands of self-help and instructional texts that attempt to unlock a writer’s mind. But how can one expect these foreign bodies to know how to decode your own intellect? Aren’t you the one who locked it in the first place? Isn’t the lock on the inside? Don’t you have the key? Or is it a combination lock and you have, in your human way, forgotten the code?

Shhh... I silence the grin creeping onto my face. “you’re writing” it says. “shut up!” my mind cries, “you’ll scare it away”. What is it? The little field mouse has bumped up against a wall. I rub my head. I was writing about not being able to write. I think I’ll make a book devoted to this subject. It shall be my longest and saddest book yet, save for, perhaps, the book I plan to dedicate to bad love poetry. I wonder if anyone will read it? The book on writer’s block that is? I guess it doesn’t matter. Something is on the page. Isn’t that victory enough? The little field mouse fans herself in one of the corners. The owl looks down at her. She looks up and in a heavy sigh says, “yes, yes, but haven’t I tried?”