when no one reads your emo poetry

I don’t want to focus on how long it has been since my last post, but that is what is on my mind.

I want to focus on what I can create with the blank page, not the blankness itself.

Too much of my life seems to be consumed by filling in the lines. You know how annoying people use children’s coloring books as metaphors for coloring in the lines as opposed to coloring outside of the lines? Essentially, it is a more roundabout way of stating “think outside the box.” Well, anyway, why do we need to color at all? Why can’t we look at a book and marvel at how well the artist drew the shapes and scenes? Why must we always add something to it? Why are we coloring at all?

Is a black and white picture actually incomplete? Hell, is a blank page incomplete? Is a blank page even a beginning? The blank page itself is the end result of a different process of turning a tree into paper. (By the way, does that still happen or is all paper partially synthetic now? Just tell me straight up because I am not in the mood for a Wikipedia-sponsored rabbit hole today.) The process of turning a living organism into paper is itself a science and art. Yet, we largely ignore that because duh, of course, everybody knows that. Then, we sit around and complain that the blank page is tormenting us. It is not incomplete. It is already complete before it ever arrives to us.

We make so much paper, which is an incredible feat of human ingenuity in and of itself. (Obviously, I was not part of any of that directly, so perhaps stating “we make” is a tad of stretch, but duh, of course, you know what I mean.)

I feel obligated to note that this post is written on metaphorical paper as it exists on a blog. However, a similar concept applies. I am utilizing a laptop, produced by engineers, programmers, and factory workers as a finished project, to type this. Furthermore, I am using a website format designed by programmers. This blog post was complete before I even started typing. I am merely adding black text.

There is no purpose to anything I am writing here or on paper. I am merely coloring in or outside of the lines. Now, do not mistake my claims here to say that only physical products exist. For example, there is an inherent contradiction in how I started this post. I was cleverly lamenting those who talk about children’s coloring books. Well, isn’t a coloring book in and of itself meaningless because the paper could have been blank? Certainly, the artist and publisher added to blank pages by including the cartoons or whatever is there, and the cover, and the boring blurbs that everyone nods along to while reading in a oh, that’s nice even though those blurbs are completely soulless and unnecessary marketing dribble. Is the coloring book purposeless? Well, yes, probably so.

There is no great advantage to making a coloring book of trees as opposed to skyscrapers. It is all utterly subjective and likely decided upon by an anxious executive who really needs to increase his sales numbers because the big boss is acting like a big jerk and it is probably due to his ongoing divorce drama but that doesn’t matter because he is going to take it out on our poor anxious executive anyway and the previous frog coloring book did well so that’s what we are doing again final story.

There is very little point to all this writing: novels, screenplays, nonfiction, poetry. It stings me a little to write that as I have elevated those mediums so much in my own head. However, realistically, those are words on a page arranged in different ways. Society creates gatekeepers as a way of making it all sound a lot more official, mostly to enable a minority of people to make an exorbitant amount of money. We make an awful big deal about some letters on a page. Those letters are special! No, wait, those are terrible! We have basic rules that make sense for communication purposes. Then, we layer on burdensome ones because some people decided to be fancy.

We could be pleased with all the paper we have and spend our time filling it with words and colors or nothing at all. However, I often find myself agonizing over how I wrote something awful or, more likely, did not write at all out of fear that I will inevitably write something awful. Either way, I feel consumed by dread because I have learned that is a competition to fill the most blank pages with the most celebrated ideas or words or colors, but those celebrated ideas or words of colors change like the wind.

The idea that there can be a right way to fill a page is like claiming there is a right way to plant a forest. There may be strategies to achieve a replicable outcome or imitate another’s efforts, but how could there be a right way? It is already complete. Writing on this page is not even editing, it is glorified doodling.

Ah, have we landed on that dreadful comparison of how writing is just like life? One of those: we are complete as we are narrative arcs. Eh, I’m not too sold on that one either, so I will gloss over it. After all, I am truly bothered by writing itself.

I’m reaching the end of my interest here and I fear that I have once again written something awful. However, I’m choosing to consider that it is impossible to have written something awful because good writing might be as purposeless as poor writing. The metaphorical blank page of this post has been filled in, but it would have been as perfect as complete without my rambling thoughts.

The blankness of the page is a purpose in itself. It does not require words or lines or color. I’m so quick to try to change it and adapt it for some other purpose. Maybe, for today, I can look at a paper as the final stage of itself. It is complete. I can be serious, playful, or scared in my approach, but none of that changes the paper. So, I present to you my doodle, my graffiti, my splotchy coloring. I took a perfectly good piece of paper and scribbled all over it. Fortunately, there is another stack ready for tomorrow.