Lament of the talentless

This is my love song. These are your words. This is my attempt to convey. To find the coherence that you long for. Amongst these daunting shadows I stand in desperation, waiting for a sign to confirm that these words are strong enough. That they are right. That they can stand alone and not be shaken by the wind. Here is my forceful yell, hitting the rocks that entrap me. I wait for the echo to return in sweet confirmation, carried by the breeze that dances loops around me, leaving the message gently in my ear. If only it were so. If only the yell turned into distant, soft embroiders of assurance. But it never will. It gets lost. Swallowed by the eternal vastness of this impenetrable hole.

Then I continue. My journey leads me through darkness. The dark is met with only the occasional simmer of light sifting through the dense net of doubt. No chance to find the way, no hope for a guide. I learn to lean on walls, to see without light, to feel the turf under my unsure feet. I learn to curse and praise my invisibility. I learn it is a hindrance and an asset in the process of trial. I want you to love my words. These words that have been born out of desperation and a fierce desire to make better, to fulfill a destiny, a calling, a path that has been set. I want you to love my words without ever seeing me. Lure you, repel you, make you hunger for more, make you elated or bereaved, leave you in the dark beside me or bring you to the light without ever reaching the surface with you. I want you to love my words. Nurture them, heed to them, never turn from them.

As imperfect as this whole may be, it is my whole. Crooked, chipped at the seams, torn, dull, barely useable, a true whole no more, but the only thing I know to belong to me. A perfect fit to my misshaped soul. I would not know how to use more. The exact measure of talent that has befallen me sinks low in the cup, disappears at the sight of a better trickster. The murmurs quiet and the shuffling feet slow, stay motionless until there is a need, a desire again for the words to arrive at the page. This quest is as much as I can take. Bigger adventures, grander plans would die in execution. The nights are few which welcome the thoughts, the words, the emotions. Those nights can barely handle the traces of talent that lead me into deeper darkness, more unfamiliar and uncomfortable places of interest. These nights cheat my lungs, prove that living is not breathing but feeling. In these powerful nights I am invincible and my words are shiny ornaments of a priceless value. I hold the air in my lungs hostage until I am done, have fully succumbed.

 

Towards the end I wish you away. I want to keep my secrets, never let the dirty work of creation be known. By the end you would have seen my bare flesh, exposed, publicly ridiculed. Maybe you felt it too, maybe you will read again to try and understand. Maybe you will read until you discover the sense. In every attempt remember that it was more important to write, to come to the end of these words than to have forcefully rounded a message or tale of success. These words survive on little talent. In a sea of waving enthusiasm do the best they can on endless nights that allow them to roam freely.