Finding Home

My pen

Glides

Across the page

Spilling ink and joy

Pain and frustration

Sorrow and rage

Love and light.

Iron, wood, water, paper

Mingle in a melody

Of sensory delight and

Catharsis.

*

Poetry

Is my

Home

Fiction is my refuge, an escape

From the worry and the stress.

Because writing…

Writing is my comfort zone

Where I shine in the dark

And forget I am a shadow.

For a moment

One sweet slow moment that lasts forever

Before it's gone

I can be anyone.

As the keys

tap tap tap

Their metronomic rhythm

My muse is dancing to the beat

The tap opens; the dam breaks

Words come rushing in like high tide

Washing away the impostor syndrome

The doubt

The fear of failing too close to the sun

When the fall would be

That

Much

Further.

When the muse is happy,

I am home.

*

Sometimes

My muse is moody

Sequestering herself in secret chambers

Deep in my psyche where

I cannot follow.

(I do not know the path)

And so

I must wrench the words

From my soul

Like drawing a sea from a stone.

Sometimes

I cannot write at all

And

Those are the bad days.

The days when I am lost

When my inner voice

Is at the other end

Of a game of telephone

Distorted by distance, time

Memory

Until I cannot understand.

The messages get muddied

Muddled

Meddled with

Until the plot is lost

And the poem is

Collapsing

Under the weight of the

Vocabulary

I flaunt

When I write with no soul

To feel the rhythm and the flow.

*

But then,

As if arranged by fate

A voice announces a challenge

And, suddenly,

I am driven to rise

To meet it.

The call of adventure

Rings in my mind until

My muse can hear it too

And she returns

To lead me down a new path.

A fantastical adventure beckons me

To the edge of the universe

And back into the warm

Safe

Comfort of my home,

Verse.

It was the Vocal Scribes

Who loosed upon my heart

The wild, untameable inspiration

That resurrected a dead world

Never born

And brought an avatar

To life.

They

(You)

Lit the beacon

Which keeps my muse vigilant

My pen sharp

And my gratitude

Eternal.