Simplicity

Pencil presses to paper

While fingertips flood with dread

Tapping, tapping, wheels are turning

Turning inside my head.

I can feel the words I want to say

Beating within my heart

But they’re unattainable,

Inaccessible,

Possibility plays no part.

Do I rhyme or set words free?

Does this word flow with that?

How can I make this thing I feel

Sound beautiful, not flat?

My teeth clench in subconscious pain,

My fists pull chunks of hair,

My eyebrows furrow

In frustration,

All as nostrils flare.

The pencil moves, writing words, but no—

The lead scratches them out again.

Repeat the process twice over, and finally—

One line finished in vain.

This will take hours, if fortune is kind

To create something called poetry:

Something they love for its words intertwined,

Something they love for simplicity.