Open Mic at Art6 Gallery

Open Mic at Art6 Gallery

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Solitude

The worst part of writing fiction is the fear of wasting your life behind a keyboard.  The idea that, dying, you’ll realize you only ever lived on paper.  Your adventures were make-believe, and while the world fought and kissed, you sat in some dark room, masturbating and making money.

                                               - Chuck Palahniuk

Here I go again
staring at a blank screen
looking for the next words
to fill the white space.
Honestly,
it’s not what I want to be
doing tonight, but
I don’t have any other plans.
This blank page is my date
and we’ll converse about
anything my mind can conjure.

But solitude is not the way
to live one’s life.
It keeps creeping around
everywhere I go and I’m
finding myself standing in
a space all to myself,
unable to connect with humanity
and just walking around
like I was orbiting personal space
as a distant moon
up in the sky and far away
from the planets below.

So I dream up my own scenarios
and I put them down on paper
or type them up on my computer,
creating my own little universe
where I don't feel so alone.
So what do you do
when you feel that empty feeling
of solitude and your words
don't keep you warm at night?

4 comments:

Mark Butkus said...

This blank page is my date. Damn, I wish that I had written that line. Looking back, some of my best dates began as blank pages that would in time become my best friends.

angelique said...

This is real. "just walking around/
like I was orbiting personal space/
as a distant moon/
up in the sky and far away" is a great image.

Brian Miller said...

def an all too real piece...there comes a time when our imaginary kingdoms crumble...and that is when solitude truly wins....great write man...

mrs mediocrity said...

funny, my husband and i were just talking about this at dinner tonight, the hardest part of writing can be the solitude, it's not a substitute for life. but it is the plight of the writer is it not?
this is a wonderful poem, heartfelt and honest and true, oh so true.