The Thread Vol. 1 – Musings

Steve Crockett explores what it means to be a writer heading into a dystopian nightmare armed only w/his words.

I am a writer. I say these words to myself in the mirror in the morning. It’s not a mantra; it’s a war cry. 

I am a writer. These words once stuck on my tongue like fudge, and now, after twenty years of writing, they flow because I believe them now. 

I’ve been paid as a writer. I’ve made a living as a writer.

I am a writer.

So, in this political climate that looms overhead like Gotham City right before the loonies leave the asylum, my writing hasn’t just shifted, it’s stopped. My voice is gone. Not because I’ve exhausted it screaming, but because I’ve lost it, like a bus token or a mitten. It’s become impossible for me to find the words that fit the utter helplessness I feel when I sit to write these words. 

Because for years my writing has been a protest. My writing has been cathartic. My writing has been an escape and a prison, and I’ve loved them both. I’ve written myself free and I’ve captured and contained myself on the same page; I’ve emptied the clip and soothed the wound.

And now is the time to return to the process. Except I can’t stop sleeping. I have no words. None to throw at those who have offended me and none to offer as comfort, like a warm bowl of soup on a frigid day. America got me. It got all of us who wanted to believe that, somehow, America would right itself. That the hero would get up and with their last breath, do something to save us all. I’m annoyed at optimism now. Annoyed that I ever believed America had progressed further than where it’s always been. Annoyed at myself for thinking that this time—just this time—Lucy might actually leave the football on the grass long enough for Charlie Brown to kick it.

So, I write these words reluctantly, from beneath a blanket that isn’t keeping me warm, to say that I’m a writer. And there is still something to be gained here. There is still momentum to be seized. But the feeling, the one I can’t escape, is the mountain of tears that has solidified into a pain in my shoulder, a pain that now hurts whenever I write. My spirit is unwell. The grass may need my bare feet. I understand now why all the writers I adore, the writers who were warriors, left this country. It’s impossible not to feel betrayed by America while having to admit that despite its infidelity, despite the backstabbing, I still love a country that is impervious to my anger; the love is toxic. The call is coming from inside the house, it always has been. And I can only hate America in this way because I’ve loved it still.  

But America won’t answer my calls anymore. Maybe I’ll get a boombox and show up outside America’s window. But I’m a writer. So, I write—mostly when I feel like it, and especially when I don’t. 

I am a writer…