Ink fades onto the crisp, white sheets,
Lanky fingers grip the blue pen.
Words appear and then disappear
Under slashes and x’s.
T’s get crossed,
I’s dotted,
And once again words get sliced out, whited out,
blued out.
Thoughts are mottled in frustration,
Once crisp and clean, the white sheet is crumbled,
crushed,
Thrown out to join the pile of other lost white
sheets.
The writer lifts her hands to her tangled head,
sighs, thinking,
“I can’t write poetry…
Stanzas, lines, rhythm… Things I cannot
do…”
She slouches on the side of her bed,
Looks out her lifeless bay window overlooking the
empty water.
She envisions herself - a poet laureate, a
despondent dream.
She briefly clears her mind, closes her drained eyes.
After a pause.
She retrieves the once clean, crisp, now crumbled
and crushed white sheet.
Deliberately opens it, careful not to tear the
edges.
Her eyes flow over the words, over x’s and slashes
and over crossed t’s and dotted i’s
And over the whited out and blued out and realizes…
The pen has spilled its ink.