blood and flesh, ink and paper

This too was another piece published on another blog. This piece I wrote last week. In the intial blog I included this extended introduction, which I will leave out of this posting. I will say that as part of my attempt to write more, I've been turning to a little book called The Pocket Muse. It was recommended by Cousin Molly. The following arose out of writing exercise that stated: Write about a noise or a silence that won't go away.

I keep waiting for it to stop. I wait for the rhythm to break and the silence to reassert its hold over me. If only for a second or two. It's nearly imperceptible that scratching noise. The finite tip of a fountain pen gliding across the surface of paper. Someone is writing, but who? And why does it not cease? I can hear the break as the writer completes a thought, adds punctuation or starts a new paragraph. But there is no sound of papers shuffling. No shifting of sheet on sheet. It is papyrus neverending. Or maybe the author is writing and rewriting every word. But i hear the hand movement as the palm braces the sheet. The timber changing as the weight of the sheet changes. What a heavy burden to write. If i were to write what would i say? What God cursed this neo-Sisyphus with such a task as this? And why can i not find the source of this incessant scratching? Ink on paper is flesh on bone. Or blood on flesh. What blood is spilt to write this saga! But who is to say it will never end, certainly not I. At night i think i think, maybe, the writer sleeps but i find my dreams inundated by the distant hum, that far too close sound. My own blood it is i write on these pages. When will I stop? If existence is not being nor becoming then i shall live forever in words and thoughts. Or maybe it is God recording, dictating, praying. What Kafka-prison traps me in words. Even the spaces are full as they signal difference between what is and what will be, or could be. The sound recedes now as it becomes part of my essence. I am the writer and the written. The noise and the silence. But only as long as I remain uncaptured by either. What is the difference between a sound that won't go away and the silence that remains?