Pissing and moaning

Let's watch Steve as he mixes his metaphors like Tom Cruise in Cocktail.

I knew this was going to happen. After Spring Semester I was able to get in a weekend of being a writer again. Sure, I know, once a writer always a hard drinker, or something like that. But I was able to focus on getting words out and didn't have to think (to much) about classes or the day thing. However with the 72-76 hour weeks (between class, clinicals, and work) there hasn't been much time to write.

And I miss it. I miss it the way a heroin addict does their next hit. The anticipation of release and homecoming. Stories I've half finished grip me by my mental sweetbreads, their hooks sunk deep. And there I quiver, a side of meat waiting to be cut, dancing on air.

I need to breathe, but I'm drowning. It's the wrong kind of air. Did you know most drowning victims don't have a lot of water in their lungs? As the iced cold touches the pit of their soul, the trachea spasms shut and then doesn't open again.

It is a hell of searing heartache. A fire that spoils the appetite and sours the mind.

I come from a tradition that says if you love your art, you will find a way to make it. And I've looked. I've tried. And when I have the moments the well goes muddy then dry, choked with the dust of desiccated dreams and the words won't flow. The only thing that comes is sleep, black and yawning to pull the final straw from the Jenga tower.

I pour all this data into my head like the milk into the newspaper cone trick. And I try it again hoping this time to make it stick. More and more I jam the numbers and angles through my eyes hoping they stick somewhere in the back. The more I shove in, the less I feel of me in there. Day job, numbers and techniques, slight of hand and keep skating across the thinning ice. Faster, jackrabbit, faster. Night job, numbers and techniques, throwing myself at the problems until I knock the walls down.

As I thought I was finding my life, relearning to have fun like a quadruple amputee learning to walk, I do this to myself. Self inflicted mortal wounds that will slowly leak me away. The tears hide in my eyes, afraid to pour forth lest I lose even that hope.

And what is this? Anything more than methadone? Quem deus vult perdere, dementat prius. Lots of time spent writing words that don't add to the fiction count.

Don't mind me, I'm just cranky. I needed to get some things off my chest.