I can('t) write my way out of this.

I can write my way out of this.

There's this hole I've dug. You know the one: impossibly deep, so that the bottom is as dark as night and almost as cold and lonely. The sheer rock walls crumble just a bit when I call for help. No way out, and all I've got is this damn shovel. A pen and some paper.

I can write my way out of this.

All night I dreamt of writing. I should have been swimming through the air, practicing my flying. I should have been exploring those fragmenting cities of the future, or fighting off demonic robots. But I was writing instead - some endless essay, of which only the title remained in the morning: Staying Young: Retaining Relevance in an Irrelevant World. I worry. I worry too much about age. I worry too much about worry.

I can write my way out of this.

I repeatedly tell myself the same thing so that I might one day come to believe it: there is strength in single-mindedness. Though it’s more stubbornness than single-mindedness, more steadfastness than stubbornness, more dauntlessness than steadfastness - yes, I am undaunted. I lie to myself so that I might one day know the difference.

I can write my way out of this.

Time's a little faster down here. Condensed - sort of squished, I guess. Though there is less of it, I still find time to procrastinate. I think: there is truth in the faint, hurried lines of your sketches, but the smudge marks of your eraser are much more revealing. Just like the dirt removed from this hole, what is missing weighs so much more than what remains.

I can't write my way out of this.