Where Words Go To Die
2nd Saturday Prompt: Writer’s Block
I used to be able to write.
Now my words fold in, shriveling up like reticent flower buds forced into petty submission.
Held within, the words feel crowded in, with no room to breathe and no way out.
The lack of oxygen causes the words to suffocate and slowly die out, one by one.
Like little oil lamps getting snuffed out by a random wild breeze.
Earlier there was a stampede with the exits being shut off, and handfuls of words trampled each other to death.
There was no time to mourn, no time to absorb the enormity of loss.
I tried to grieve, but no tears came. No words flowed out of my wide, searching, scorched eyes.
I waited for the pain. It didn’t come.
I waited for deliverance. It didn’t come.
I had nightmares of the words lining up at the cliffside, committing mass suicide like lemmings.
At other times I would dream of the words’ heads being chopped off on a kitchen counter, blood dripping on to a linoleum floor, all in black and white.
The little heads sprawled out on the counter surface in various grimaces, forever tongue-tied now.
