I was set to ‘kill time’ in school today. Made sure my journal was packed neatly in my bag. But lo and behold, as I was set to write, my lovely pen was nowhere in sight, thus the silly prose poetry. Tsk.

Woe to the Writer
by: RJ

Woe to the writer who is caught without a pen,
When the train of thought starts flowing
He’s but a helpless, crying baby in a hungry lion’s den.

How else will he appease upset dragons breathing fire?
How can his words satisfy this insatiable desire?

How else will he rationalize, hypothesize or theorize
Streams of musings that go swiftly in between blinks of his eyes?

In earnest ramblings of metaphors? Pitiful twists, ironies in disarray?
In incomprehensible assertions — all that cause the reader sure dismay.

The writer caught without a pen,
like a naked soldier amidst a fierce battle
Is left to either run, hide or foolishly surrender.

What to do then, pray tell, when all you have is the ‘here and now’
And when neither yesterday nor tomorrow will ever soothe you somehow?

When there is no time to waste searching for an elusive pen
Lest the ideas before you fly in haste like silly men.

How does a writer write when mere fingers can barely make a line?
When what’s in your head is sure to leave you in no time.

Woe indeed to the writer caught without his trusty pal,
When words come raining on a summer day’s lull.

If he misses this chance, this one perfect trine,
Tomorrow might pass him without passion or rhyme.

How will he pocket letters, mix and match, confound and clarify?
When nothing seems a blessing but these words from on high?

Such waste of time, such waste of thought,
Such moving tragedy for a struggling, stupid moth.

A loss indeed, a loss in need.
For what glory does a knight have
apart from his noble steed?

Hmmm. I think we can both agree — yes, you and me — that this blog has been out of the limelight for far too long (and by limelight, I don’t mean the fabulous kind, blame it on my recent writing vacation, I used the word for lack of a better term).

Anyway, for all those visiting this puny space of mine in the virtual world, and who does so every so often, let me begin by saying that although I am not really sorry, (because that is not the proper term — the word I’m looking for, the term that aptly describes my feelings towards this issue, my dear, escapes me), I am nonetheless, almost always heartbroken. Maybe I will remember the exact term after a paragraph or two, who knows? God knows how much I need your patience right now because I have run out of it for myself. I guess what I’m trying to say is that a writing/blogging vacation isn’t really good for me or for anyone else for that matter. Even for those people who stumble across my posts once in a while, either by choice or by divine intervention. And each and every time I see the same IP address arriving on my page on a different time, different day, my heart stops and bleeds — because the truth is, I never really wanted to stop writing, regardless if nobody but myself gets to read what i write. You see, what many people (bloggers) have discovered (whether they admit it or not) is that there is joy enough in publishing content for all the world to see (and read). Nevermind the prospect of fame or appreciation — those are just icing on the cake. The real joy of blogging is the act itself — sitting in front of a pc, with nothing but your thoughts running through your fingers, pressing each letter on the keyboard — that poor thing trying to absorb whatever emotion comes with each press..

You start with practically nothing — from scratch. And after the whole affair is through, which lasts variably from minutes to hours to days, the “publish” button eagerly waiting for your click seems to bat its eyelashes at you, teasing you, taunting at you, as if to shout “click me if you dare!” and the blogger spirit in you, the writer heart that you wear ever so proudly but traceless of arrogance, finally gives in — click you I will! Click you I dare!

Posts are made up of paragraphs. Paragraphs of sentences. Sentences of words. Words of thoughts. Thoughts of sparks — images conjured up by one’s valiant heart. There is apprehension, yes. But will I let it get me down? No. Will it stop me from writing? No.

The blogger of today is not so different from the prolific writers of the past, if only for the fact that once they start writing, they no longer belong to themselves, but to those who “read” them.

So yes, this blogger is yours. Apprehensively, yes. But yours just the same.

Ah yes, that “term” I was looking for? It got away. :)