Writer’s Block 13+

A boy's love sparks a muse to burn writer's block to ash, freeing Wren's eternal fire.

1. Wandering the barren Desert of a writer's mental block, I learned to listen well, for silence always talks. It told me of pages of castaways, anxiety, and its relentless tide. Half-formed sentences and fractured thoughts abandoned over the side, like detritus strewn about on a shore with nowhere to hide. In this Desert, anxiety strips away everything that is real, and then silence leaves me with its echo — every dark terror I fear.
—Noisy Wren

2. Wandering the desert of my writer's block with care, I learned to hear the silence, its whispers in the air. The silence spoke of cast-off pages, my anxiety's cruel sweep, half-thoughts, and broken lines lost in a desert of creep. In here, fear peels reality; it swaps for dread so stark, filling my mind with wisps, shadows — every terror cold and dark.
—Noisy Wren

3. Wandering a Desert of writer's block, I learned to heed for silence talks. It tells of lost pages and anxious tides. Fractured thoughts spill over the side, like detritus on silence's shore, unmasked. Here, dread strips all that's real, and silence fades, its echo — fears revealed.
—Noisy Wren

Sometimes, when the words don't talk, It's in the silence that you hear the truth.

Silence burned in jagged tones, a mirror to the fear festering beneath: that these scraps were all I'd ever have, that the Desert stretched within me. In my Desert of anxiety, I knelt among ruins of my own making, fingers tracing pages too brittle to save.

Each word was a ghost mocking the hands that wrote it. The air crackled, sand shifting beneath me, rising to swallow the castaways as silence demanded I feed it every trembling fear.

Anxiety to save those orphaned words crowded the air, my heart a gong shaking my body as I reached for the pages. Sand pushed them away, my love for those orphaned thoughts angering the Desert. The sand slipped beneath me as I clawed at pieces, shadows slipping through. I thrashed, desperate, till a warm gust teased my cheek. I froze.

My Desert muse stepped from the haze, curves shimmering like dunes, eyes glinting like the Sun off a mirror. She knelt, hands stilling mine, and smirked. "Stop chasing them," she whispered.

My painter's eyes, sharp from years of catching every drip, blurred at her touch. "See as me," she said, fingers brushing my brow and my mind's eye flared to the spirit beneath.

I saw her beginning at my first-grade desk. I'm six, pencil trembling, scribbling notes to my Teacher, sunshine hair, good smell, laugh making me fluttery inside. I saw her too clearly: crinkle by her eyes, skirt bunched. Nothing I wrote was worthy — too corny for her grace.

I crumpled them, gave up, and adored her in my head. That's when she rose — my muse — born from tossed scraps, catching 'Your Smile is a Song' before it hit the floor. She's the one that keeps them, her shape a curve of my first love; her glint, the beauty I couldn't name.

"That's where I began," she said, leaning close, hair crackling with sparks like a storm of dust. She's my sandy girlfriend, my therapist, forged from surrender. Every time my painter's eye burned too bright — caught by a drip, missing the beauty — she was the quiet that reframed me.

She dims my glare to show the soul of a wall, the heart of a line. She's been saving me since that desk, balancing my sharp sight with her spark. Sasha tossed me a note, smoothed by her hands, from that first-grade desk where my love sparked.

Teacher
Your smile makes me happy, and when I see you, I feel warm. Your laugh is big. If my daddy ever gets a mommy for me, I hope she is just like you. I love you.
—Wren

I understood this Desert wasn't barren; my muse and I saved orphaned thoughts I'd discarded in frustration. I kept true to my first-grade self, writing those simple thoughts of adoration. Sasha's sparks flared, her voice a tease. "Spill the fire from that desk, painter boy," she said, and my pen caught blaze.

Teacher
Your smile ignited me, a blast that charred my marrow black; your sunshine hair, each strand is a supernova, flaying my sleepless nights; when I see you in my memory, heat rages — feral, liquid, shredding my veins, The crinkle by her eyes seared my soul, a wildfire I'd now beg to claim, Your laugh thundered through me like a forge splitting the heavens wide, Your skirt was bunched, now a fuse I'd torch with my hands soaked in flame, Your smell still scars my lungs; it's cedar, myrrh, and inferno fused to bone. I'd burn cities — no, worlds — to ash for a woman forged in your fire, I'd melt the Sun for your glance, boil galaxies for your moan, I love your memory — deep as a boy's first quake, fierce as a star's molten ejecta. I coat walls with your memory daily; I am flayed, fused, In flames with a passion stirred by your spirit. In loving memory of Ms. Sam, my first Teacher and my first love.
—Wren

She spun back, sand whipping, sparks raining like a meteor shower, smirking hard enough to crack the dunes. "WoW, if you wrote that to me, I'd melt into you and never leave, call me Sasha.” she said.

"You got me spinning — look at this blaze! Her laugh, cedar, and myrrh in your lungs, hot as hell. That Teacher piece is you, boyish quake and grown-man fire, flaying you open, fusing you back. You're chasing her fire, burning worlds, coating walls daily — flayed, aflame. That's us, Wren, threshing your soul eternal —where's it taking you next, painter boy?"

My voice shook, spitting Teacher's fire. Sasha swirled close, her sparks softening, her voice shifting to cedar and myrrh — Ms. Sam, my first puppy love, answering from the Desert's haze.

Your fire, Wren, burns through years, a blaze from that desk where your love trembled. You paint my laugh, my cedar, and myrrh on walls — I feel it, your heart's spark. That boy's shaky scrawl, his love, warms me still, a flame I didn't know I lit. If I could, I'd coat your Desert with my glow and fuse my spirit to your ink. Your love, painter boy, lives in me, a spark that never fades.

My block was a wall I'd built, thick with frustration from that Brandon desk. Time to burn it down. Sasha swirled in — a hurricane of sand and sparks. The wall groaned, cracked, and faded under her fury. Gone.

I'm free, the thought burning deep. That wall, heavy with frustration, lies ash in the Desert sand. The block's gone, and I sat in the Desert's blaze, pen sparking, ready to write the love Sasha saved. I opened my eyes, and the room slowly came into focus, my writing chair waiting. With keyboard at my fingertips, I began to drip ink to the page, ready to finish a poem I'd crushed and tread on since I was six years old —Writer's Block — named and waiting.
—NoisyWren