When did I stop knowing how to write? I was always the clever girl. People sought me for advice. I thought I was smart, I could make a difference. Everyone told me I was driven so when did I pull the key from my ignition and stop seeking my path?
I'm writing the first thing that comes into my head because that's the way it should be, a craft, not a mental exercise as I try to make the words right and they come out left.
When I was little I was going to write a book, my dad knew a publisher, I would be a sensation. When did I stop trying? Can somebody pinpoint the moment I gave up. Maybe when I started trying to live up to my skyhigh expectations.
Perfection isn't a disease, an unattainable goal, whatever you're going to forcefeed me when I cry about my imperfect grades, imperfect room, imperfect mind.
I still lose my head when I see a mess and no, maybe I'm not okay. Why do you even ask?
I wanted to create a world but I turned back and saw that I already had. I saw a castle fashioned of my own writing, own words, bricks made of prose and I scoffed at how awkward I was in the past.
But at least I was brave.
At least I had the courage to keep building, rock on my castle walls, pen in my hand.
And there my finest monument stands, unfinished. Wrapped in the ivy, crumbling.
I was sure it had a flag, I wonder where that's gone. Maybe it's still here, turned white and defeated with the years of neglect. I wrote a playscript when I was ten, started hiring actors so then what happened? Was I unsatisfied by my own performance? Did I run out of drive?
Did I stop knowing how to write?