The Story Survives

[I tossed and turned in bed last night, my nerves wracked by the feeling of creative impotence... I remembered the little notebook languishing in neglect on my bedside table, grabbed it and desperately wrote whatever I could. Then I felt better.]

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I know a story to tell. The story starts with the spit that drips off my lips when I dream, and it moans from my stomach when I lay awake hungry at night. When my thumb cramps and my pencil slips, the story survives. When I reach for the highest branch on the tree and a leaf falls on my face, the story floats on the wind. It sleeps in my head and fills my ears with the sound of its breathing, sometimes snoring so loud that it wakes up with a start.

If I can turn the tables with enough force, I shall possess the story, dizzily. In the meantime, syllables swarm my life like flies, married by the laws of divine truth, but estranged in their devious plan to deceive me. They will not love me like a mother tongue, so I am condemned to gibberish.