Dried Ink

This page looks so flimsy, an unnaturally thin piece of sliced wood pulp, mechanically pressed and dyed. As I run the jagged tip of my recently bitten fingernail across it, I feel so many imperfections. It's coarser than I think it should be. Every stroke of ink splashed across it is skewed ever so slightly by the microscopic bits of leftover wood grain. The reflective, black liquid pools into a tiny void at the end of each thought, held together in a warped circle, only by surface tension. The dot relaxes into permanence once the foreign air has had its way with it. The instant that drop plummets from the ball point onto the rough canvas and dries, everything before it suddenly takes meaning. Fully fleshed out ideas immediately begin to rip themselves off the sheet, attempting to fling into the mind that lies behind a set of watching eyes. I have created a solitary example of that. A lonely sentence. It sits there staring back at me, like an excited puppy wondering where it should go next. It has unlimited potential, even without me, but in order for that potential to transcend the imaginary, it must be led along. Each word I see beats like a pulsating heart, remaining constant and steady. Each new ink stain adds to the chorus of circulatory drums. It reminds me of the subtle ticking of robotic hands around the clock face, the metallic squink of each second tearing through space. Every hour, the tick converts into a menacing boom. It shakes the four walls surrounding me. The aftershocks of this particular quake, drone on through my subconscious. Pressure swells in my head, paralyzing me. The puppy pulls at the leash, desperately yearning to run wild. My insecurity grips the leash tighter, choking the puppy more and more with each one of my shallow breaths. I don't want to kill it. I want it to flee any which way, with infinite paths and possibilities. My misguided ambition might soon suffocate it, rendering a corpse of a once beautiful source of infinite possibilities and impossibilities, lying on the gravelly, ink soaked page.