Writer's Block

I sat at the dining room table across from a heaping pile of papers I had been pledging to go through for the last 3 weeks and next to a half empty glass of white zin. Some Zombie horror TV show that Shawn was entranced by was blaring in the background. It wasn’t a comfortable place for me to sit down and write out my thoughts, but I had to get some of it out.

I kept getting distracted by little things around me. My legs itched relentlessly. I kept adjusting and fidgeting, but couldn’t get in a comfortable place. I played with my newly cut hair and brooded in little ounces of regret, trying to remind myself that I had to get rid of those dead ends or it never would have grown like I wanted. Still, I missed my length.

I would pause every two sentences or so, look around, scratch my legs, stare at Shawn staring at the TV, and then stare at the carpet for a while. I felt like I was stuck at that table, like a child being forced to do his homework and couldn’t get up until it was done.

Every time I got stuck on a word or started to get Presque vu (which was often), I would end up staring at a scab on my arm for more than a minute if I were to guess, unable to hear anything in my mind because the words being said from the TV screen suddenly became vastly audible and jumped in front of the words I was searching for, making it impossible for me to leap to that perfect word or expression.

This was all my fault.. My brain was in a very lazy, unintelligible state, having not read or written in what might as well have been ages.

I pictured my mind to look like an old forgotten-about plant. It was something beautiful, probably with interesting colors and shapes, but right now it was nearing death. It was dried out, thirsty, wilting from all sides and losing color and life. It was obvious that no one had visited this plant for a very long time. It wasn’t necessarily forgotten, it was just that its caretaker had no idea how much life it was losing and didn’t have the time or enthusiasm to take care of it.

I shuddered, lost in silent hysteria at the image I created in my brain, of my brain and panicked quietly. I had to save it before it died.

I stared momentously at the wine next to me and communicated with it telepathically.  “We can do this.” I imagined the wine glass, my companion, to nod at me supportively.

And then after about 10 more minutes of no brilliance, no bright ideas, no magical writing dust, I surrendered to my wilting mind, closed the word document  and got on Facebook.

Jason's Wrath

       I cowered quietly as I waited for Jason’s wrath to decompose, the way a tree bends during the eye of a bad storm. He was a hellacious force to be reckoned with during his streaks of anger. He was big, very big, which made for a leaping head start in the intimidation race. He towered at a neck-breaking six feet and six inches (nearly a foot and a half taller than I), with fists like bowling balls, legs like thick, unbreakable tree trunks  firmly planted in their place. His voice was thundering, eyes piercing. He was a truly frightening presence, angry or not.

I let him yell, hearing in slow, amplified sound every cutting, spiteful word he’d spit at me and hearing nothing at the same time, except my own prayers being whispered anxiously in my mind, begging for the end. I’d close my eyes, partially wincing in fear of the objects flying past my face and partially to shield my young eyes from the terror that stood before me. My boyfriend.

Unable to hold back my cries any further, I let out accidentally a coughing, guttural gasp followed by a cascade of burning tears that I was unable to stop, like a dam that had been broken, letting free a powerful monsoon. In my mind, I panicked, knowing what this meant. His shadow covered me like the moon standing in front of the sun in a full solar eclipse. The shadow was cold. I felt chilled to my bones and shivered, waiting  for what would come.

Words that I had practically memorized started slithering out from between his gritted teeth in a nearly inaudible, but ever-frightening whisper only millimeters from my face. Words about how I needed to stop crying unless I wanted something to cry about. Words about how I would walk home if I didn’t shut the fuck up. Words about my pathetic panic disorder and words about this being my final warning before I paid for my sounds.

I did everything in my power to keep the cries to a minimum, to make them stop if I were to be blessed with a miracle. They didn’t stop. They didn’t even hush. They got worse. The tears stabbed at my throat and screamed to come out, and like vomit, I couldn’t hold it back. It was involuntary, and irritated sorely by my condition. So it got louder, thus worsening my punishment.

In a quick, seamless motion, my tiny shoulders were trapped in between his monstrous inviolable grip and I was trapped, not to say I wasn’t already at the moment I was lost in his cold, dark shadow. I felt my heart, stomach, and mind all sink at the same second. Everything in my head disappeared and black, liquid fear replaced all the blood that was rushing furiously through my veins.

I did not put up even a hint of struggle as he rattled my body back and forth vigorously, my neck flopping frontwards and backwards noodle-ishly like a ragdoll. My head was an earthquake, all the words inside of it now jumbled around like the pieces in a Scrabble™ game. But I didn’t resist, certainly didn’t fight back, and didn’t try to pull my shoulders free. I knew better by now. I knew better.

I waited in throbbing agony for the cyclone to be over. It ended with a hard shove sending my back and head barreling into the wooden bureau behind me. It hurt but it was a relief that the rattling had stopped. Thank God (which was what I did every time I saw the end and still had my senses about me).

I involuntarily clutched the back of my head as the ache came pounding on my skull like an angry burglar at the door, doing everything in its power to come in. I let it in. Swirling in a dizzy haze, I saw Jason's sideways body walking towards me. I felt a mild kick to the cushy part of my waist, thankful that it wasn’t as hard as I knew it could have been, (more of a “Is-the-pathetic-thing-dead-yet?” kind of kick) accompanied by some group of demoralizing words.

And then he left the room, probably to fetch himself a Gatorade.