...a single sentence. When I focus and understand the way I wish to be understood. When I’ve found a way to download all of my insecurities and fears into some visual discussion with myself.

When I can’t I face other structured words. Dig deep in search of the meaning, of what I can take back from that one sentence that’s haunted me, that’s still there waiting for my full attention. Waiting for me to arrive with an assured solution brought back from my endless searching, for me to say “I’ve got it!” and lead the way.

The problem I can’t seem to resolve is when I’ve found something useful and become intrigued. When words in unrelated work have value and are seen worth my mental space. I’m drawn away and I find that I dwell on this knowledge more than where my focus should rest.

The twisting and turning begins, and clever comments are added here and there, I say them out loud to assure my tongue trusts what my mind believes. Minutes turn to hours, hours to days, to weeks, to months, before I know it these words share all my efforts and have an entirely different meaning and purpose to the worth they should be assisting, but they’re valuable. They’re equal, but different.

But then I’m stuck again. Not knowing where to go is no excuse for inaction. I find more words, and learn more, and study more, and work harder. Before I know it, I’m surrounded by incomplete pieces running my life, consuming every second. There’s no room for other things in my life other than these words. The words get the game and play along, careful to not disrupt order, and this level of cooperation sucks me...

I feel trapped. A self-made prison cell, stuck in hell. An inferno composed of doubts and hopelessness.
A place of misery where all I know is my addiction. All I know is the itch is present and I have to scratch it. I can’t help myself, I can’t control myself. No one can pull me out of this place.
It’s torture. It feels like losing sanity. Losing logic and reason.
The people around me are slowly pushed away by my selfish behavior. I’m too weak to fight this desire, but I need my fix, I need it so bad. I can’t think without it, I can’t exist without it.
My hands are red, tired, beaten up. My fingers hurt. It’s killing me. My mind is breaking apart and I struggle to so much as define what’s real from what’s not.
But nothing else matters, no one matters, all I see, all I think of is this fix.
Desperation fuels me, gives me energy to search and fill the emptiness, kill off what’s left of me. The desperation fuels me to leave who I am written in stone. To bleed me onto solid rock, to draw the hieroglyphs of my psyche on any canvas for all eyes to see.
The ache that I’ll end up alone, lonely, and discarded from...

...less confident in the story because of the flaws found while reading, I can’t think of repairs for my hopeful masterpiece.

The laptop closes and I move onto the next day. Again, I do the meaningless routines of daily life, speak to people I hate, wander the streets in hopes of inspiration. I light my surroundings ablaze and beg the flame for inspiration. Perhaps it’ll jog something in my memory. I land in front of the laptop and the fumes do their job well, not the one I anticipated, but, you know, clouding things up. Now I can’t focus, but I’ve committed to the writing time and I plan to sit here and write until I’ve completed my commitment, regardless of whether or not something useful, pointless or anything at all lands on the page.

This cycle of aimless wandering goes on for days before they mutate into weeks and evolve into months. Nine to be exact. Nine months of this torturous aimless, uncertain wander through life, through the words, through the pages. Somewhere down the line I turned the word count off until I was confident the story was told. I finally turn it back on and discover the word count...

By Jack Thomas