A block, a wall, a dam. This is where my creativity has gone…this is what my creativity has become. Perhaps it was the recent cold snap, perhaps my warm scarf was too tight, noose-like, hypoxic neckwear. 

You do have writer’s block don’t you?

Yes, what now? 

Where’d the little boy, Creativity, go? The imagination?

My creativity’s been taking a backseat to the rat race – the chores mundane. The creative process a frozen backcountry, a minor role. A backseat to life’s routine, to the grunt work, to – the monotony? Ah ha, my creativity has become milquetoast to this monotony, this routine…afraid to speak up and disturb the status-quo. Damn you routine, damn you!

How did you let this happen?

Me? Blame will not help this situation will it? Blame? How do you bring it back to the fore? That’s the question. Blame? Blame is useless!

Fishing. Fishing will bring it back.

And what then for bait? A new pen! Ah-ha! A new pen…a new pen! So simple, if only it were so…

Taunting?

Yes, the taunt! What better than peer pressure. Rise up timid one, rise up! Speak your mind! Rise up you creative soul, grand imaginer – rise up! Perhaps…

Drugs then?

Caffeine? Of course! Of course…caffeine! Again, no, if it were only so easy.

GET IN THE RING BOY! Cried the blood-fisted titan. Crooked nose and bandaged knee, the warhorse, the monster that is the piss-poor choices I make. The titan that’s crippled me many times over with its colorful lures, fishing its tempting seductions; as if my meek little boy, my creative soul any match for this, this hardened warrior, his fearsome blows. He would be killed.

My creative little boy – so timid, so fragile, so much growing up to do. Why don’t we go this way, away from this place, take a little walk, a wander over here?
What do you see there?

I see a cabinet.

Come on now, what do you seeee?

I see the fresh spoils of a hot oven behind curved glass walls, brightly lit, lumens and lumens lit, bright and hard to miss, bright to catch a hungry morning eye.

A lumen, a measure of light, is nothing to a blind man – is it? Close your eyes.

Spoils of the oven – crisp top crust and coated in sweet, sweet cane.

Crunchy top, hard on the roof of the mouth, I can taste it. What then of the oven?

The oven? The oven a contrivance, whilst the fire? Now the fire! The fire is primordial – the most basic of needs – the root of it all…ah-ha, the root! I see a tree – roots deep, so-so deep, tickling the warm, moist mantle through the hardened crust. Soft, delicious, nourishing.

Give it some water my boy, it will grow. Give it some water…