It Shall Be Written

This gap that exists between the writer I want to be and the writer I am, how do I bridge that?

Write it all down.

I’m burning “want to be.” That’s the illusion I recreate every day to give me something to flagellate myself with.

After all, I was raised Roman Catholic; I had to have something to bring to Penance every Saturday, something for the priest sitting in the box on the other side of the screen from the box where I kneeled. I had to have something to say, some brokenness to spill in hushed tones that he could then tell me had been mended by god’s grace. I had to have something to give him that he could exchange for a blessing so that for a few brief moments when I returned to the pews in the darkened Saturday church and said the prayers he had assigned…