Stagnant Stretch of Words

I'm stalled. Stuck, so sick of pounding my fingers against the keyboard and getting nothing but incoherent letters and punctuation, run-ons and ramblings. If I even get that fortunate. Lately, it's mostly my mind slipping into such a wake of despondence with sentence after sentence that is jumbled in my mind but lodged inside, refusing to slip to paper.

How many times I have come to coffee shops, soaked in the interior and marveled at the curve of wooden tables, string of lights and stirring atmosphere, quiet murmurs of other patrons. How many times I've nestled into a corner and hunched over my laptop, eager to savor the sanity rolling over me as I cling to the familiar I have in an unknown city- coffee and words. I find the music that sets the tone of my mind, take that first sweet sip of espresso and bid my mind to open to the world writing itself inside me.

And I wait, an uncomfortable fidgeting blooms along the flowerbox of my heart... weeds springing up to trample the flowers of fiction. They take a tight hold, and the color of creative writing dulls and drains into the soil, stagnant and helpless at my feet.

Where is my lifeline? Where is the consistency that has always kept me sane? I don't know why this is occurring, why my writing eludes me and why I'm left grasping in the dark to tie down a few errant thoughts that don't dig deep enough to form a foundation. Why am I consistently staring at page after page of white? I know what I need to do, what I need to write, and in my tentative heart the embers continue to smolder. Still the sprockets of my soul spin and whir along, pushing me forward. I scrape at the sky hoping to pull down a stream of sentences that fall to my flowerbox, once again breathing life, renewing waters to the well of words within.

Lights still shimmer, caffeine still swims through my system. My eyes are wide with hidden hope. I promise myself that these words will come, the scenes will rise and stories unfold. I keep my eyes to the horizon, hold my hand to shade the sun and squint to see the storm swirling in the distance, bringing the downpour.