A writer paints, a writer sings, a writer
cooks, a writer jumps, a writer dances, flies, kills, creates, makes love,
plans, gambles, smirks, laughs, cries; but a writer never writes.
So then, what does he do?
Does he sit in front of a scenic view or a
café, downing copious amounts of cappuccino, jerking ink on paper?
Does he hope that a story will walk into
his dreams, pushing him off his bed, onto someone else’s?
Maybe a writer simply hums.
Maybe a writer wants to have nothing to do
with words at all.
Maybe all that man-child wanted was to
dance like a woman but because he was denied, he took to ink.
Maybe all that he wanted in high school,
was to be wanted. And because acne came in the way, he took to ink.
Think of that writer who was beat up so badly
that she couldn't retort but with a pen. Or the one who always broke up with
her boyfriends before they could. And gave herself to paper instead.
Words appear in the absence of something.
They wriggle themselves into an empty space and sit there comfortably, till it
becomes home. They make us all the things we couldn't be; give us arms, legs
and a wing or three.
The next story you read isn't prose.
It is a pair of ballet shoes.
