I try so desperately to stray from my comfort zone, but I end up in the same, self-aware corner each and every time.
Paragraphs upon paragraphs of poetic phrases and metaphors taunt me in my sleep. They beckon me close, invite me to reach out, ask me to be the one to write them, and then they run away from me, mocking me as they delicately disappear from my dreamscape.
I am eternally haunted by all that I could be. I lie awake each night, waiting for slumber to take me away from each possibility that mimics me as it sits just out of my reach. As I lay, ghostly figures dance through my room. They wail and scream and shriek and sob and make sure that I don’t sleep a wink.
I am eternally haunted by all that I could be.
Because both they and I know that I don’t deserve to sleep a wink. Why should I deserve to sleep when there is so much I could do? So many words I could write, so many metaphors I’ve yet to come up with, and so many dreams I’ve had but will never fulfill.
Sometimes I write entire stories that are perfectly average. Content and mediocre. And then I delete them. I hold down the “backspace” key until I can’t even remember the horrific, nauseating jumble of words that I just poured my entire heart into. Chances are I’ll do the same to this. It doesn’t matter that this is late, or that I’m trying my best. I don’t consider myself a perfectionist, but I am when I care.
I care too much about the very idea of writing, and I can’t handle the idea of committing to something I don’t at least kind of like.
Normally, I can’t define my comfort zone. Because I am always uncomfortable; I am always being watched or judged or laughed at. If I’m alone, then the voices in my head carry on that legacy. They morph into those ghostly figures, ridiculing me and reminding me that I will never put something meaningful out into the world.
However, I have a comfort zone within writing. I concoct basic descriptions of the weather and seasons and convince myself that it’s different than every other thing I’ve written about that season. I jot down my innermost thoughts about how I’m running out of time and running from time; I write the same sentences over and over because my thoughts don’t change and neither do I.
I’m afraid of falling asleep knowing that I’ve contributed nothing to this earth. I gasp aloud at the sky and I fawn over the lifeless trees in the winter and I feel unworthy as I try to encapsulate the beauty of lavender: the flower that makes the ghosts stop wailing and the poetry stop mocking me. The flower that reminds me even though I could write this better, I still deserve to sleep.
