The Block

When I imagined what it would be like to be a writer, I saw myself hunched over a typewriter with bourbon on the rocks sweating a ring onto my desk. I could smell the ink on my fingers and feel the burn of alcohol in my gut and hear the keys clapping, a standing ovation for the poor sad boy who wrote wings onto his back and flew away from the red mud county. But it's quiet here. I sit alone at my desk and I reach into my guts and I grab fistfuls of blood and viscera and the keys don't move I choke up the rage my father left in me and the keys don't move I cut out the fear my mother so lovingly placed and the keys don't move I drag out every black eye, bloody nose, and split lip I ever earned, every fight I lost, every single argument I had, every sunset I was a brother beneath, every truck cab I ever fell in love in and THE KEYS DO NOT MOVE