Insomniac Nightmares

It’s easy. The pen is the scalpel, the page the wrist. The words, best of all, are the lifeblood.

It starts slow. A slash here, a droplet of blood there. Single words without much meaning, blossoming on the page. Another cut, deeper this time, the bloodstains begin to merge together, giving birth to clauses, sentences, eventually paragraphs.

That’s not enough. Never enough. Cut again, tear through the flesh and expose the beating heart beneath. The arterial blood is what we need, what we will have before the day is through, staining the whole page red. The white space will be killed. Writing is not an act of peace; it is an act of war and violence, altering perception by shattering it. Leave your mark on the world in the splatters of blood that tell your story.

Eventually, however, the blood runs out. There’s no more left. Either the patient has died, or needs time to recuperate. The pen is put away, the bleeding allowed to stop.

But tomorrow, a fresh page will be waiting, clean flesh to hack into the design you choose.

Don’t keep it waiting too long.