Just Write Something Already, Part 1

I've got writer's block like you wouldn't believe, so here begins the first part of a series of essays on Various Crazy Ideas. Oh joy.

***

I stretch out before your eyes, oppressing the view. Others say that I am beautiful, that they love me for my starry sky and for my mountain ranges and my rolling hills of golden wheat. But you find me hideous.

Am I truly ugly to you? Or do you simply hate me for what I have done?

I am the distance between the two of you. You cannot hit me, and you cannot destroy me. All you can do is hate me. You lie awake at night and stare at the stucco ceiling and cry, cry tears of rage at the trees and the hills and the road, the endless gray ribbon that twists and turns all the way home.

Home. Where your heart is.

And when your eyes are hot and itch and beg for relief, when your sobs turn into exhausted pants, you fall asleep and dream of me. You run for hours, never gaining an inch. Suddenly you are lost in the woods, a pine forest you have never seen. And you know that she is close by but you can't touch her, you can't find her, because I will never let you touch her and I will never let you find her and I will always be that which stands between you.

I am the distance between you. You fear me and hate me. You are a revolutionary seeking to topple my black throne. You are a logger seeking to destroy my forests. You are a developer seeking to pave my fields. You are a marathon runner, and you tell yourself you will run across me and find her again and you will kill me and nothing will come between you two again.

I wonder if you love her, or if you only need her.

Quest all you wish, bold adventurer. I will stymie you at every turn. Love all you wish, gentle lover. I will bathe you in loathing.

Live all you wish, fragile man. I have broken you with a woman.

***

Sam's comments:
This was all written stream-of-consciousness. I haven't gone back and done any editing whatsoever. I believe that part of my inspiration came from my friend Kitti's poem "The Distance Between Objects," which is a much better treatment of the subject matter in my opinion. But giving distance a tyrannical, sadistic mindset is something that I thought was cool. Should I revisit this in the future, I'd like to explore how the distance actually feels, and what sort of pleasure it takes in denying these lovers the closeness they crave.

More will come soon.
Sam Riedel
listening to: Weezer, "Pinkerton"
reading: "Ultimate Spider-Man: Ultimate Collection Vol. 1" by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley