open letters to no one

ignite

I try to force words to onto paper for weeks.

("don't put words in my mouth" is something I've said, but what am I begging for now? some higher power to do the same to my pen?)

my mind is a desolate desert and I'm just asking for one flower (when I've had rainforests crowding out every other thought and I'm suffocated until I can write it down) to make myself feel like I'm still full of phrases I never tire of playing with
but sometimes I have nothing to say.

and at the end of the day that's why I still don't parade around my adoration of nouns and verbs and adjectives- my adoration that is scrawled over every part of me except my tongue.

I choke I choke I choke under pressure like no one would believe (which they wouldn't, because I can count the times I haven't aced a test on one shaking hand). I play it safe and nothing about writing feels safe (letters doused in gasoline and a period lighting it all aflame) so I've been kidding myself this whole time. all I am is dramatic and lonely and I KNOW it and so does my damn journal- it screams at me all day and here I still am, pretending I've ever been able to control the words I wrote. the words I write.