Writing

Empty, mocking, laughing lines
Stare back at me from an empty page,
Daring me to put down words.
To scrawl down on the blank
Space; ideas I must write
Refuse to come to my pen.

Silence is punctured by a tapping pen;
I probe between the lines,
But my longing to write
Glares back from the vacant page
And my mind is blank.
The pictures in my soul need words.

Snarling, rough words
Beg to crease paper under pen,
Grappling, fighting to fill the blank,
Distorting the pristine lines,
Snapping, clawing the page
Demanding of me: write!

I press the point to write,
Bullying, commanding words
Boil on the page.
The stroking of the pen
Fills in the simmering lines,
Trying to calm the restless blank

I pause at a momentary blank,
Out of pictures to write,
But the beast between the lines
Again stirs up the words.
They pull at my pen
And wrestle it to the page.

My soul is glued to the page,
Toiling to shrink the leftover blank
Space, losing pace with my pen.
They are winning the battle to write,
Those coercing, driving words
As I labor over the last lines.

I throw down the pen at the end of the lines;
I've survived the words and turn the page
To be greeted by a new blank, and nothing to write.