Steady Hands

They laughed at my feeble attempts to express myself, then wondered why I spent so much time alone in my room. A closed door, blank paper. A typewriter’s busy, furious clicking: (Let me write, let me write, let me fill up the blank skied night with words.) “Isn’t she ever coming out of there? It’s not normal spending so many hours alone in that room.” Sweet oblivion reaches out its kind fingers and buttons me up, envelops me in the warmth of my little corner. Words splash and spill into midnight hours; they shake their heads in puzzlement— I am not one of them— and I have no explanation to offer. I kneel down and mop up the spillage of words with steady hands.