Interior Workings
an excerpt

I scrawl loosely across the page. Sometimes in the lines and sometimes outside the lines. In fact, I seem to prefer to write across the lines diagonally. I like to draw arrows between connecting thoughts. I like to abruptly change directions in my thoughts, and show this in the way the words fit at cross-patterns on the page. I create doodles, bullet points, lists, half-formed thoughts.

I waste paper – a deliciously naughty act. I can hear some long ago voice in my mind scold me, and inside I shriek with equal parts of laughter at the waste -- and horror at the death of still yet one more tree. Such is the dichotomy of the artistic and far-flung writer’s mind.

Or perhaps it is just the sign of a sick mind. Whatever – it gives me something to waste words and paper on, in the vain hope that something salvageable will come out of the attempt.

Lines. Lines on paper. I want to scream outside the lines. I want to hop back into their safety. I want to jump out at line stayer-in-ers and scream, “Run, run as fast as you can!”

I want to indulge in missed punctuation, poorly spelled words, sloppy writing and messy papers. I want to break all the rules, and I want to do so with impunity and never a backwards glance.

I want to write my sentences diagonally, upside down, backwards, across each other . . . .

I’ve spent a life time straining against the rules, the confines, the bounds, the regulations; rebelling and fighting to “scream outside the lines” only to turn around and slink back inside those forsaken places for a moment’s peace. And I scream outside them once again.