4

It's a be-damned uncomfortable feeling the words are there but dance just out reach. Can't grab one for nothing.

Sure, had this before, but never with this kind of pressure behind them.

Urgency? Sure. Had that. Deadlines and urgency are opposite sides of the same coin. Siddown and pound that stuff out, Baker. Get it right. Don't worry about anything else. Get. It. Right.

Can do, Muse O Mine. Watch these fingers fly.

But this won't.

Stuck, but not writer's block. Had that on occasional too. Uncle Homer Circle said he never had it. Not entirely sure I believe him, but he said so.

The words are flowing. You are reading this so something had to come out.

But it ain't right write. It's there. Won't move. No, not correct. It moves. Slips aside to let something else out. A poor facsimile. A malformed doppleganger. Can't even be called a carbon copy.

Can't even get a grasp on it to pry something loose, knock a chip off.

Keep seeing images of a man on a front seat of car dying. Laying on the ground dying.

That's real blood. A real person. A real death.

Didn't need to see that.

Didja know I can't watch war movies any more? Can't. Well, at least the ones that are realistic. Can't SF, can do. Distant. Imaginary. More than a step removed from reality.

Whatever won't come out, that's it. What these words refuse to jell into, yeah, that's it.

Tried over and over and over and over and you get the idea. Got blogs loaded here as drafts. You won't see 'em. Maybe never see 'em. Kids might choose to release 'em when I'm gone. Might let this account die and the words expire.

Words have an expiration date, doncha know? Sure they do. Got written words on the planet now no one can understand. No Rosetta stone. Big mystery. Colossal joke, maybe, nothing more than some puns or knock knock jokes. Could be.

See, too many trains of thought leaving the station all at once. No trafiic jam because they all truck right on out of the station while the dispatcher stays behind in the yard inside the communications shed. That's where I need to be. Gotta get in there. Gotta find a way to get in.

Maybe then the words will come. Maybe then we'll both find out what's really inside.

Sure hope so. Gotta get this stuff out. Can't just continue to sit there.

This helps. Like the train whistle, let some steam off so she don't blow. Except this is a different pressure. If you ain't a writer, you can't understand. If you ain't an artist, you can't understand. If you've never been driven in a way I can't explain (AGAIN!) you can't understand.

But if you've been there, done that and saved your sanity by setting it free, you understand. You understand part of it. Maybe not all. if you ever had one that was like a shadow out of the corner of your eye, yeah, you get it. Most folks won't get it. Can't get it. Never had to do something they (...hateloved...) to get back to reality. Never had to worry about a balancing act and finding an ever shifting line in a target that keeps moving.

Mark Twain knew. Ambrose Bierce knew. Kurt Vonnegut knew. Too many of my brothers and sisters in ink also know. Too many are going to find out. Some figured it out and released the demon? kraken? beast? angel? spirit? nirvana? joy? sorrow? Whatever, they got it. They won.

"You won't like me when I'm angry," said Bruce Banner. Stan Lee got it. He won.

For now it's tamed. For now. But for how long.

As Danny Joe Brown asked; How many times must good men die? How many times will the children cry til they suffer no more sadness. Stop the madness. Oh stop the madness.

Make it stop. Make it go away. Maybe then I won't have to write it.