Write the words to set yourself free.

Below are a couple of freewrite exercises that I recently completed while attending a local writing meetup. In other words, it was not polished prose.

The first one I felt ready to share that night. The second one, not so much. But now I share it here, in this sacred space – my altar to words.

Who am I?

I’m stuck here on this boat. Drifting on an endless sea, I suppose. It’s been raining for just over a month now in this place, a so-called haven for heaven. I’m not alone, at least. But I am crowded and I can’t take it anymore! I want to feel the sun on my face, the dirt under my toes. I want to grasp a tree branch, flush with leaves, pluck off a tiny apple and bite the wisdom of its tart flesh. Yet I’m here, lost, though they claim we are found. I’ve found only a soggy spirit adrift on a flooded world.

The one mercy of all this rain is that I feel clean and pure as the water that drenches my soul. (Ran out of time here).

I have a thing about religion…

This next freewrite was the result of the prompt: “What are you waiting for?” Others took a more fictional angle on it with characters, whereas I felt the need for a confessional about the monolith of depression that blocks my writing:

I am waiting to die. Waiting for the dreams to smother me in the night. Lost hope, lost soul. Daydreams into null. Words unspoken fade away into thoughts scattered by fear. Thoughts only tumble into nothing. Nothing, I fear. But I do. I fear my words. I fear my thoughts written, done. I fear facing those memories as they threaten to shroud me. Buried in the ground. Or I could light them up. Let them burn away. Drifting as ashes, obvious delay. Can’t write if you aren’t here. Alive, breathing, heart beating. Thoughts bleeding. Afraid to poke and prod, even to see the words of my story form into shape. Down I go and out it falls, but nowhere to find it as it flows. The ink has dried too fast. My hands hurt too much. I think I know what my story is and then I let it fade into a question of not knowing at all. So I wait. I wonder. I try. I tumble. I let the plot die as I breathe in fear…and hope falters.