Tabula Rasa

[penfield]

"Writing is so difficult that I often feel that writers, having had their hell on Earth, will escape punishment hereafter."
- Jessamyn West






The blank page taunts me.

There it is.
Wide-eyed, asking for answers
Like an impatient schoolmarm
Or a disappointed parent
Unblinking

Or a mouth wide
Yawning, struggling against itself to be filled and fulfilled and fall
asleep,
its work done

Undone
It stretches
In all directions
Uncurled
From here to midnight
Uncomfortable like an unfinished



Sentence.

Snowy white and
Cold
It is inhospitable
Offering no rest or comfort
Numbing the extremities

My head is
Wrapped in the blank page
and
Wrapped around it

I give it everything I have

It gives me only
Paper cuts.