Choose any sentence. Then begin to write.

My vision was blurred. My small, dry, cracked hand

I slowly picked up the pencil with the best

Precision I could manage

But the pressure of being in front of him

Made my fingers open up causing the pencil

To drop on the wood table.

I tried my best to close myself off.

I didn’t want to hear him sigh in disappointment.

But he didn’t.

And again.

I repeated the slow and painful process

For close to the tenth time, but now

I felt like I could do it.

Slowly, I lowered my writing utensil

Down onto the scratchy and dry paper to write.

I paused on the paper not knowing what to say.

Again, he said, choose any sentence.

Then begin to write.

Those words still ring in my ears

Twenty years later, and I long to be back

In that room with the roaring fireplace

And the towering bookshelves.

I remember what I wrote, although

Parts of me wish I didn’t. I was only seven,

And my childish brain longed to be poetic

Even though, truly, it wasn’t. I had heard someone

Say it before and it was the first thing that came to my

Brain, though it meant nothing to me.

It is my favorite line to use and the fact that I wasted it

On such a foolish attempt disheartens me. I wrote:

I feel that I am trapped in a box and too afraid to find the key.

This was something that I believed sounded nice

But I now realize that I was just trying to sound

Above my age. People had always told me that I was

Smart, talented, and gifted. But I never told people

That those talents  was not original. I was not the one

Coming up with these things, I was not the person

Who I told people I was.

Surely, I did have wings, but they were meant

To fly other places. My wings were being trapped in this

Box of deception, and the key was in front of me.

But I couldn’t escape; what if I leaped out

Into the great unknown and everything ended?

This line, I believe, now encompasses my life.

The voices inside that were once a faint mumble

Are now growing into a deafening

Cacophony that kills me everyday.

When I was young, I was foolish enough to

Believe that it did encompass my life then.

But it didn’t. I had everything and I didn’t realize it.

And still the question remains. What if I believe

That this line represents my life now and it

Doesn’t? What if everything gets worse?

Is it possible for the ashes of a burning

Building to light once again?

 

But right now, my only

Solution is to

Choose any sentence.

Then begin. To. Write.