Further Down the Rabbit Hole
Story 4: Undue Inspiration
Rating: Teen for Safety
Misc: General
Pairings: None
Warning: Very vague character death
Disclaimer: Bleach own don't I.
Summary: Poetry, for Isane, was a refuge but she couldn't help but feel that she could be better. What she needed was inspiration.
Kotetsu Isane had always fancied herself a bit of a poet. Not a very good poet perhaps, but a poet all the same. Poetry kept her sanity intact during those far-too-common nights when she was working alone, with only injured men and mental demons for company. It was her outlet, much like Iemura's diary or Unohana's tea; something she just couldn't do without. Maybe her love just made her problem inevitable.
The wind tends to sing
Like there is no greater joy
Than being homeless
She compared her paltry works to those that had touched her own soul and was so very disappointed. Regardless of how much or how she wrote, it always seemed so conventional, so trite. She found herself bored, disgusted even, with the staleness of her own work.
As every good poet – as every good artist – her heart longed to reach greater, grander, more evocative forms of expression; she pined for the ability to pierce to the heart and speak to the soul. So, unable to do much more, she wrote and wrote and wrote, hoping all the while for a spark, THE spark, of true inspiration.
Flowers are pretty
But bend too easy in strife
Please don't be afraid
Days came, days passed, but there was still no inspiration to be had. She watched the clouds and saw the stars; she did everything to find her muse, but still there was nothing. It was a sad state that she was in, with the will to write but seemingly not the ability. Her friends noticed – asked what was wrong. Nothing, she had said, just tired she guessed.
She began to doubt her ability to write at all. Every time her pen would touch paper, an unbearable sense of inadequacy would overwhelm her. She just wasn't good enough. She would never be good enough. Desperate now, she began showing her closest friends small snippets of her work. A stanza here, a quatrain there, small peeks and glimpses into her mind.
No one was abusive, or even nasty, as far as that went, but no one seemed too terribly inspired either. "It's good," she was told over and over again. In theory, that should have brought some comfort to her; in truth though, it didn't.
She didn't want to just be 'good', she wanted to inspire as others had inspired her. In time, she began to worry that she had become corrupt, had become a poet that wrote for others' approval and not the satisfaction of her own soul. Several weeks passed and she still remained 'good'. Eventually she couldn't help but wonder if her friends had lied to her about the quality of her work. It was only logical, she thought, that at least one person would be inspired by even mundane poetry.
Some days, she didn't even know if she wanted a good or bad response. It would have been so much easier if someone would have just said, "Hey, Isane. You're terrible, the worst -ever-, a complete disgrace to poetry. Never write again." Then, she could cry and get over it. Then, she could dash her notebook to the ground and deem herself a failure. At least, then, there'd be something to accept.
It was the uncertainty that killed you.
She felt trapped within herself, her bottled emotions hellishly ripping and tearing at her very soul. Nothing gave her solace. Then, one unwanted day, inspiration struck.
Rabbit-flower wilts
And lovingly fades away
Here, no eyes are dry
A/N: Hey everyone.
This drabble hits a little closer to home for me than some of the other stuff I've done but I hope every writer, artist, or actual poet can see something of themselves in Isane here. If you can't, then congratulations, friend, you're a far better writer than I. Oh, and if it wasn't too clear, the 'undue inspiration' here is the death of Unohana. Often it takes some real tragedy or pain to find your muse, unfortunately. Pain makes every man a poet. Oh, and excuse the haiku's. They were just the only type of poetry I knew that had a distinctly Japanese feel to them.
This is my fourth drabble, however, that is no excuse for it to suck. If it does, please don't hesitate to tell me.
Please review as feedback is always appreciated.
Exile.