Sometimes I take a line, one that swims to the surface at an inappropriate time, and hold on to it harder than anything before. Cement that idea, that emotion; nail it to my subconscious to let it fester, pulsate and grow, until out from it, like the seed in a second grade science project, sprouts an idea. The idea may be parallel, maybe something far different, but it grows anyway. Snaking its way through my physical and metaphorical self, picking up new strands and threads as it goes. Building itself into a form of something, of a monster I eventually cannot control. I begin seeing it everywhere, the reflection in the bus windows, the blank space in between paragraphs.
Then in those eternal moments when the only thing to do is write, I give it life. My pen is God, the ink blood. The idea takes a defined shape, a tangible realness. For the first time that idea becomes something I can touch, run my fingers across and feel its shallow grooves and smear the wells. I too have the joy of giving birth, of creating a something from a vast nothing. I become an inventor, a creator, a deity of word and romance. Over time this notebook becomes populated with my many children. A galaxy of thoughts of feels, my mind the universe, the incubator of stars and planets. Together, bleeding through the pages these lines, stories and ideas, will become familiar with each other. Meld and grow into what they always yearned to be. A poem, a story, a novel.
But all too often the lines become forgotten, never making it to form of word and lead. These lines hang in space, crowded with the others just like it. They’ll smash and fuse, gain volume and mass until they collapse upon themselves in a violent roar, blinking out of existence just as quickly as they came. But energy cannot be destroyed. Beliefs and thoughts cannot be destroyed. The collapse will breed new lines, new ideas, ready to swim to the surface at an inappropriate time.
| Euphemism Campus Box 4240 Illinois State University, Normal, IL 61790-4240 |