Nonsense left my fingers as I searched for words. I spent the afternoon puking words with little thought, and I spent the afternoon turning the puke into something less messy.

Little things to say, writing the later of nine. Sunglasses here we go. Why the coffeehouse when the wooden boxes. Where are the wooden boxes? The signs of the universe, you decided to go there. I don’t know. The thoughts of lying. Why do people lie? Strange rugs of boxed coordinates. I don’t know what if anything I’m writing about. I’m floating through mind’s eye and wondering if any words could describe this nothingness. The fat man gazes over his boots and socked feet onto the street where rainbow flags wave.

The coffee goes through me and I don’t think it’s stopping to say anything. Inspiration is miles away from my coddled brain over fried eggs. I’m not seeing where it goes from here. The big game watched on the big screen. Where do I find the huggable character that’ll explain life to me? I don’t even know what he is on this late afternoon day. So here goes everything. What is everything on a day like this? Buy me a frog and I may talk to you. Buy me a cantaloupe and I probably won’t. Isn’t that how life always happens?

All the best ideas appear in showers where writing instruments aren’t available. Why can’t I follow through with good ideas and make them into something. I sit here after a mushroom omelet with all energy sapped away. If you can find the sapper, I’d appreciate it.

Such nonsense.

I want to go home and sleep. I’m willing to admit failure and sleep. Why do I use sleep to cover up my failures? What do I hope to find within the confines of my bed that will push me out to where I don’t want to be? Discipline. It’s what I’m missing and don’t think I’ll ever find with my random wanderings. Such crazy words mixed with pancake batter.

How much easier would it be to put down the keys, to roll over and let life escape through the spaces between my fingers? I think about that a lot. I think about what would happen if I stopped. If this page went quiet, and I ordered cable and spent the evenings and weekends mindlessly escaping from my thoughts, focusing on the tasks and politics of my job, perhaps becoming better at it. This would all disappear: my disappointment in my output, my quality, my stories; my endless search for a voice that probably doesn’t exist; my childhood reveries about a past that I should have had, or thoughts that should have filled my waking moments. It all would vanish into a timeless hole of, “yeah, that was me, back then. I don’t know what I thought back then, but I’m glad I’m not thinking that anymore. You have no idea how much time and battery power I wasted on those thoughts.” I would stop drinking coffee and people would be impressed. I would enjoy what normal people do and leave normal at enough of that.

Of course, there would be moments where I’d glance through a bestseller and grimace, knowing that deep inside myself is a voice that would embarrass the. I would think of stories I would want to tell, and repeat them to those around me for the thirty-thousandth time. They would smile, nod, and think, why does he keep torture himself? I would reach toward my back pocket and try to pull out my Moleskine, only to find the pocket flat. Such possibilities would turn into disappointments at what could have been but isn’t. I would look back to the promises to myself and say, “eh, I’ve failed before and I’ll fail again. What of it?”

Those paragraphs hurt.

I feel all the stories in my empty, lacking in substance and reasons to tell them. I want to say something, to write about anything that will cause people to laugh and feel. I’m drained from saying nothing as if nothingness is itself is a drain on my resources. Try as I might, there is nothing that I want more, or could give up for the last time.

Two-thousand word studies.

I don’t want to hear petty stories about petty lives with adjectives like “petty” strewn along the path. I want to learn about something new or meet interesting people who have something to say about the world around them. I don’t want to read ten-thousand words and find no meaning or answers to a life question. All writings should answer something, even if the reader never thought of the question before. I want to give them something they never had before. I don’t want to write something because I had a clever idea, or something happened to me, and I wondered if I could turn it into a story. I want it to be more than that, more than conveying a moment; I want it to convey an answer.

How can I do any of that? What is it I’m trying to do? At least I’m putting words on the paper and wondering if there’s something valuable about these words. People want to see juxtaposition. They see something in writing that reminds them of themselves, or creates an opportunity to cheer someone on or live in his shoes for a moment. Show the moments. So many words that say almost nothing.

Reach outside yourself and see if there’s anything left, anything you want to say that goes beyond nowhere.

Soap. What’s the question? What’s the conflict? The resolution? The characters? The message? Blankness, existential blankness as if that can have a meaning for me. What is rising from this mess of words? Disorganized, piles of nothingness that I hope will say something but that don’t. Cleverness is left behind and turns of phrases and diction, where do they bring me? Monsters riding on the back of pregnant men.

Take junk and turn it into sculptures. I’m pressing forward, pushing against the masses and trying to find my niche within the crowd. Will they give me space, can I reach out and push everyone around me out of the way and say this is my small area, get the fuck off it? Random words and thoughts like swords pressed into the bellies of homeless men.

Two-thousand word studies.

Angst forms small piles around me. I try not to step in it, but it’s hard to avoid.