Writer’s Block

I want to write something beautiful. Something that speaks to yearning; something that speaks to the yawning cavern, aching to be filled.

I want to speak of the darkness of that cavern; of the infinite chamber that hangs silence like a curtain, waiting for the voice strong enough to pierce it – this veil that is not a veil; this veil that is “nothing” incarnate… but “something,” all the same.

I want to describe rivers of blood, pulsing with all the relentless and ferocious calm of the ocean, swelling to the unyielding call of the moon overhead.

Have you ever ventured deep inside great caverns? Do you know that there is always ice inside them, beautiful and glistening in the pale and eerie light; as cold as death itself?

I want to write something that speaks to the gentle violence that occurs, when crimson rivers start to lap at frost-strewn banks; when the diamond-studded tips of the grass bow low enough beneath the weight of their great jewels to dangle their fingers idly in these hot streams.

I want you to know that I saw the moon, reflected in dark waters, as cold and inexorable as the ice. And that one of these implacable masks had to surrender, had to yield to the other, and it was not the moon. It was never going to be the moon.

After that, I had no words; no ink with which to write. There was nothing I could say anymore, that had not already been said by better poets; better writers than myself.

What am I to do? I gave the darkness my voice; I flung it into the furthest reaches of the cave.

It echoed for a time, but now is lost.