I have a few older things sitting on my hard drive, waiting for me to return and finish and polish them. I decided to start fresh on this page. See if I still remember how to write about nothing, to consternate in its traditional and truly gory and satisfying form, where the words flow from my body like loose bowels after a greasy supper. My imagery is as imaginative as ever. Where have I gone and why don’t I return?

Been reading a lot of Harry Potter lately. I realize I’m a bit late to the game. She tells stories and tells them well. There are plots and interesting happenings and lots of places to go and one-dimensional characters that pretend to have depth. Wow this feels nice, this opening of my fingers. This is wonderful. This will obviously never make it to the site, but it’s nice to pretend. And that’s what I’m doing: pretending.

And even as I write, even as I put words on the paper that say nothing, and I don’t edit and I try to come about to something, I realize that I’m not going anywhere, that I’m not saying anything in its truest not-saying form. I begin to believe and then I doubt. Then I return to what I wasn’t when I wasn’t. Who is the character in these writings? It is always me and he never says anything. I live inside my head and I wait for me to escape. I see that there is a me, if that’s worth anything.

She or he or it waits and then there is nothing coming. Why do I torture myself like this? Why do I pretend like there is something that is not there when I know there is nothing there? I wait and I hope and then I see but there’s nothing to see. There is never anything to see. I know this, I know that is the truth, and yet I wait and push and there it goes, swinging in the wind, as if the wind can help it get somewhere.

Take a ride on a talking motorcycle going nowhere. What’s so hard about that? Ask the deeper questions with fewer words. When you go somewhere, really go there. See it, create conflict, but not too much conflict. Don’t worry about pictures. Focus on words and images and questions, large questions. Just starting writing again. Please!