Here’s to the blank page workers.

The ones who stare at the canvas until their eyes

no longer see white,

but a blend of colors bleeding in from outside,

spots mingling in front of unblinking irises.

Eyes growing weary and unfocused,

the page splits into two, one hovering just above the other,

and you need to blink just to regain control of your vision.

Over an hour has passed and you’re still just staring at an empty page,

hoping some sliver of inspiration will jump out at long last.

Too many cups of coffee and a fistful of hair yanked out in frustration and

There it is there it is there it is.

At long last you have your idea,

your muse, just the right words to mold into the story you crave telling-

…there it goes, out the window, like it was never there.

Back to square one.

 

Here’s to the ones who can’t just splatter words on a page like paint.

They tell you to just put something, anything down,

if you can get even a drabble on the sheet is better than nothing,

a blank canvas can’t be helped but a splotch of clashing colors can be fixed.

For those who can’t say it till it’s perfect

till it’s perfect…

Until it is perfect,

perfect, perfect, per-

see now I’ve said that too many times and the phrase is worn out

like my old scuffed combat boots.

You only get so many chances to use a word before it’s meaning goes,

it doesn’t sound like a word anymore just like the ticking clock in my

bedroom just sounds like sleep and three A.M. thoughts.

Is it even a word?

Or is it just some melting pot of sounds that I mushed together in my brain

that sounds just like gibberish to someone else

Scrap it. Think of something better. Do better.

 

Here’s to the insecure authors who,

even after reading the definition and

searching for synonyms and

finding every possible way it can be squashed into a sentence

still aren’t sure if they used that one word right.

Like, that expression is common enough, right?

Should be pretty hard to screw it up, right?

But would it really be used in that sentence, with that structure in that scenario-

just say the damn idiom.

Why can’t I just say the damn idiom?

 

Here’s to the pretentious creators.

The bombastically entitled storytellers who decide that the use of

said is overrated and give us instead:

verbalized or

ejaculated or

narrated or

just say said, for the love of all that is good and holy.

We get it.

It’s the same thing as looking at a papercut and thinking

stitching it up with a needle and thread is the right thing to do.

Yeah we get that you could but it’s a question of whether you should and

let’s be honest,

you and I both know it’s overkill.

Just slap on a bandaid like the rest of us and get over it.

 

Here’s to the emotional writers,

to the ones who have no outlet,

to the ones with secrets and traumas that no one understands, so they

live vicariously through a pen,

inventing a world where they can be okay.

You are not alone.

Do you know that I can feel your pain pulsating on the page like my own heartbeat?

Your hurt is my hurt my darling,

and if by listening to your story I take some of the burden off your shoulders and place it onto mine

then I will read your story a hundred times over.

Little girl in the mirror

there are people willing to listen.

No one is trying to change you anymore,

they’re just trying to help you.

 

Here’s to the writers who weave words into a quilt.

A big beautiful quilt,

one that covers all corners of the globe,

one giving us all shelter from reality and

one keeping us all warm through the storm.

The ones who stitch us into the fabric of the story,

who let us see ourselves as heroes

when the world says we can’t be.

 

Here’s to us.