An empty head. Fingers searching the right keys to hit and yield a result from. A private penance. A penetrating chain of thoughts that doesn’t yield in the written form. What do you do when you want to write so bad, but you can’t because the words don’t seem to dribble out on the page? How to stun your thoughts onto the page? How to submit them through the memory, into another form of consciousness? How to go beyond yourself?

As a child, I was often the one for whom other people were finishing sentences. I was told to speak up, be bold, venture into rooms full of guests and recite poems I wrote before them. Even at the thought of guests I would crumble within, keep a cool cat exterior. Beads of sweat breaking right above the brow. Often fumbling, even then I had too many words inside my head, and almost an inversely proportional urge to utter them.