The Process -- A Poem

So this is one of my favorite pieces from Loose Lipped Secrets and Twinkling Lights, but when I was posting a select few, this one (and more) were too long for Twitter or Instagram.

"The Process"

The curser blinks on an otherwise blank screen
The white stares back at me
My mind plays the possibilities
The characters deliver their lines
And move to their respective spots
My fingers move across the keys
Playing stenographer in a room full of people I’ve created
A line is flubbed
The current situation has taken a left turn
And is now off the rails
My fingers stop and I get out of my director’s chair
I pull them back to where it went south
And offer new directions
New possibilities
I wait to see how it unfolds
The curser awaits
The blank white yearns to be filled
While I look like a crazy person staring at the screen with apparent blank eyes
The action unfolds
It gets good
My fingers try to keep up
It’s working, it’s really working
I stop to assess the situation
Characters pause on a cliffhanger
And look to me for what happens next
The writer’s room in my head is alive
Pitches and suggestions are thrown out
Some fall flat, some stick
My fingers are like my characters
Waiting for the right moment
The ideas align like cogs in a wheel
It continues and words flow forth
My characters talk
My fingers fly
My mind edits
Delete delete delete
Pull it back
Begin again
No time for the curser to pulse
Pushing imaginary people to their limits
And I’ve reached mine
All avenues have been exhausted
Pride and happiness swells
Until
I read over everything
And hate every word
They’ve all deceived me
My hands, my characters
The writer’s room as a whole
And I walk away
I carry on with the standard actions of a mundane day
But all the while my brain works
The writers scramble to meet their quota
To crack the code and fix the problem
Nothing comes
I want to scrap it all and start over
The writers and characters plead with me
Sleep on it, they say
I do what I’m supposed to, say what I’m supposed to say
But inside I struggle
While my body lives on autopilot
My mind works hard on a puzzle box with infinite sides
And just before I drift off to sleep
It comes to me - the answer
A choice to make
Get up and rush to get it down
Or try to infuse my dreams
When I next look at the scattered black over the white page
My hatred is gone
And I’m in love again
The routine starts all over
Love passion hatred love
The work
Mental strains, tired fingers and tired eyes
A restless spirit until completion
When flesh is put on the skeleton
I work to put a layer of skin on my creation
Before I dissect it
I surgically take out malignant parts
And remove blockage
The writer’s room fights over what’s benign and what’s not
The work is constructed and reconstructed
The tired strain stays
Nothing looks familiar
A mess of notes and random conversations between make believe people
I walk away again but it never leaves me
Never leaves my mind
I look upon it with fresh eyes
It doesn’t resemble what it was
I’m torn on whether or not I love what it’s become
Or hate that it’s defied my initial direction
The curser blinks steadily
My fingers caress the keys awaiting to strike
The end
Finished
Time to dissect again
Reshape, remold
Its change only recognizable to me
Only time will tell what comes out of this
And then tomorrow I’ll start all over
A new blank page
Waiting to be filled 



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