S is for … Scribble

NESTLE into the neck of a nice quiet page, with no words on it, no thoughts, no humour, no pain.

Listen to what it says, its whisper calls you.

You.

It beckons.

It’ll shout if you don’t respond, that page, it’ll pull your face in, close.

Love me, it says.

Clothe me in prose.

You too can write and tell a story. It doesn’t have to be a funny one.

Just do it, please.

Blank pages were made for you to fill, black on white, the drug, the addict.

You get your fix.

They lure you, these pages. The pimps, they pump your fingers up and down.

Fingers melt into the keyboard, dance fast intensity; they move relentless, unguarded words on their route, the road rambunctious to god knows where.

They spring uncalled, the bastards, they burst and gasp grasp the letters, settle them from a swirling well.

They swell, and barge into the light, and then they cringe.

Disclosure, the glare, it dazzles them.

Daunting scrutiny startles, scares them, these words on a page.

It’s a sentence, to write.

Every word elicits a verdict, the reader’s on the bench.

Percipience, they plead. Sagacity.

Off with their heads, shouts the judge. The gallery roars: let them live.

Live!

We’re just words, they say, cowering on the page.

They’re stripped of mirth.

They recoil. They beg to flower, these words.

It’s all in the gaze.

Their meaning draws emotion from a subjective haze, yes.

And they hope, yes they do, these silly little words, they want a more soulful day, a day when they can play, and laugh, and throw a joy onto the page.

They bask in carefree innocence, an innocence dressed in buxom banter.

(ends)