I've been afraid to write. Even in my notebook, my old safe space for coming up with the most god-awful sexually charged descriptions of some guy I met my freshman year of college. Or, the place I used to 'wax poetic' i.e. throwing together all of my favorite cliches in free verse (streetlight, glow, face, touch) thinking 'yeah, that's kinda how I feel' and then closing the page and forgetting about it.
Now when I open my notebook it's like feeling eyes on me. I'll write a few words, get too embarrassed, and close it before I even reread it. When I try and write things to post on here or my website I've diverted to writing long-winded pieces of short stories I have no intention of editing or even remotely continuing. I've also tried working on straightforward descriptions of my new life since moving or the shooting that happened back in June, but I know the words are dull and would be a slog for anyone to read through. There was a time last year when I was a bit proud of my writing, like this blog excerpt I wrote last March:
I felt like a doll. M drove us to Cable World around 5 pm as the sun lowered on buildings that stretched in grey storefronts and corporate signs and parking lots that could have been in a Tumblr post back in the day. Cable World sat between the JU JITSU place with the green-belt family silhouettes and the travel agency with resin-blue tropical fish window art. Inside the product signs were printed out on yellow printer paper and taped to PVC pipes. Behind the counter were hundreds of quotes the owner had found on Facebook and printed out, such things as 'Working out gives you the confidence to dance naked, then again so does Tequila'. A man came in before we could ring up our cables and started talking to the owner, saying 'sorry kids' and telling the guy about his T.V. hookup problem, their tone made me feel that they were in love. Later we drove home as the moon backlit the clouds, making them turn to blue blankets over the strip malls turned plastic as the workers slept, back again in their apartment complexes and fumbling with the wires crawling from the walls.
I feel like my writing in the last few months has been more dry, more factual. I haven't felt the same levity and fun come out of the words as it used to. Here is the poem I wrote today. I'm still proud of it, otherwise, I wouldn't show you. But it also feels stiff and a bit colder than I think my writing used to be.
Give and Take
I'm trapped on a train
turning away from the track
my train car now empty
plastic seats moving with the walls
line ends between stations
You've never met someone like me
but you'd never say
I wonder how your poem goes
when you look back at me
through dreams and glass lenses
Tonight, someone knows where I am
long night looking at the ceiling
when you turn from the platform
I will have disappeared
each moment happens only once
Ring train doesn't really take me home
just around in warm circles
a father scolds his son
I watch like fog
fading from the factory towers
Yeah, I also met someone.
It was just in the last couple of weeks. I'm afraid of them too, not only because I'm in a vulnerable position having just moved here, but more because they are a writer. I've never dated a writer before. I've dated lots of people who write, but I've never met someone who made me self-conscious like this. I can rationalize it to myself, I mean I never studied writing, I spend most of my working hours in a lab, I mean, hey, I just write for fun! But that isn't true, I know what I want my writing to be. It's funny that I thought that I would be inspired to meet someone else who writes, but it's just left me more afraid. I want less pressure, and to write more garbage.