Kingdom Life

I wanted to write…

djmatticus27 Comments

I opened a blank page today, determined to write
But the words in my head were at odds with those in my heart
And all my attempts to avoid the brewing fight
Were sabotaged by one or the other before I could even start

On one side: common ground, peace, respect
On the other: anger, blame, selfishness
Without the former our world will be wrecked
But we are too proud to be selfless

I have no magic wand to wave and chant at will
And it isn’t my job to force this world to be better anyway
I have no solution to that which holds us still
But we owe more to each other than the promises we say

My heart sings of optimism, hope, beauty
My head bemoans their absence
Sadly, I know I can trust neither completely
They both are fueled by passion

I opened a blank page today, I just wanted to write
However, I felt no spark to hide truths behind fiction or vice versa
So often turmoil can galvanize thoughts to fight
But all I feel is its grasp, its drain, and its grindingly heavy inertia

27 thoughts on “I wanted to write…”

      • I do … so much. I have always struggled with fiction…I just want real. and I know real isn’t always fun and nice, but it’s real, and then we don’t feel so alone. 🙂

      • Real….
        I get that. Real is good. Real is important.
        I was such an avid reader in my youth, however, to escape from the real. And now I want to write, not to escape myself, but to provide someone like me with the same type of outlets I had.

      • I think I like them better because they are harder to write. So much is often glossed over and made to look rosy… I crave real. The little bits of ourselves that we give away in our words. I suppose even fiction does that when you are able to read between the lines. Perhaps it’s the autistic part of me that simply cannot wade through the bs. I suppose I escape into Best Fiends when I’m annihilating slugs, but in the real world I want to stay awake because there is too much stuff going on and I don’t want to have my head in the sand. I understand though. I’m just saying your real stuff rocks. 🙂

    • This all leads to another post where I ask my readers to opine on why they visit the kingdom, but what does it say that I love to write fiction but my readers want non-fiction? That’s not a question to be answered here. I’m just musing on it all.
      Thank you.

      Reply

      • Your fiction is excellent, do not stop. The world of blogging is mostly populated by self-reflection and non-fiction. Fiction isn’t a really compatible format with blogging, it’s not really the best place for it. Your readers’ preference is not, I think, any indictment of your ability to write fiction (which is excellent, as noted), I think it’s more of a reflection of the general output in blogging, and the expectation that it creates – that we talk about ourselves, and our views of the world, rather than purposefully and dutifully transposing ourselves into the minds and bodies of people who don’t even exist. In that context, fiction sounds trite, doesn’t it? But it’s not. It’s our novels, movies and plays. It’s our short stories. It’s our blog posts at times.

      • Thank you, Trent. I’ve come much to the same conclusion – this is the wrong medium for what I want to write, and I have thus been largely absent recently. However, I miss the community… the interaction, the immediate feedback and support, the camaraderie… Since I’ve known these here, it is hard to write without the community. I still am, of course. I’m in the middle of four different projects that I’ll be excited to share as soon as they are ready, but … Well, that’s it, right? They aren’t ready. I can’t share them with you. And, I miss that immediate gratification.

  3. Poem is highly ironic, because if this is your drained self talking, it is still writing. And that’s what matters.

    I feel consumed with affairs of your country just now. Consumed. It’s almost magnetic, watching things unfold, so foreign and yet familiar. Common ground, peace and respect are where we need to be, and, I think where we need to fight to be.

    Reply

  4. Who’s to say what’s fiction and what’s fact, Mr Jester? I think you were write to write, even about not writing, because in writing, in DOING, you’re still fighting the inertia, still pursuing SOMETHING, and that something is of worth, I know because in those quiet moments ideas give birth to bigger things, or things which can connect, and then who knows, who knows what happens next…

    Reply

  5. I’ve always enjoyed your fiction posts, but I also enjoy your nonfiction. I don’t think that I can say that I prefer one over the other. I feel that your blog is still the perfect place for the short stories that you come up with based on prompts, and I highly encourage you to continue to turn the longer stories into books. It’s always nice to get a glimpse into what’s going on in your life and how you’re feeling, so I think that might be why people say that your nonfiction is their favorite. We like you, and therefore we like to know how you are. I hope you’ll be able to find a balance between your non-blog projects, your blog and life in general. It’d be nice to see you around the blogosphere more again. (Says the woman who has gotten way behind in posting on her own blog…)

    Reply

  6. I am certainly glad to see you posting again but you should never have regrets for not. Yes, our political environment certainly does lead to inner turmoil and tensions. I myself have put blinders on, sadly. But it’s how I cope. xoxo

    Reply

  8. Hello Matt, thanks for stopping by. Loved this post, like all the rest that I have read in the past. And don’t feel down.

    Reply

And, begin:

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s