Just write one sentence. Put the words together in some kind of cohesive form. A statement, question, poetry, or prose, something down on paper. Something to get the ball rolling.

I sit here in the dark with nothing to say. The keyboard is in front of me waiting to be touched. If I go a day without writing, it feels like a year; I’m trying to pick up where I left off. A story about this man, or that woman, maybe a child left behind. Write about what I see, images in my head, a life that has passed me by, people met along the way, homeless shelters, psych wards, on the streets in New York, Joplin, St. Louis, Montpelier,  Montreal, Iowa City,  sleeping in parking lots, being awakened by cops and shining flashlights, driving drunk up and down I-95,  consumed by madness, leaving lovers behind. Each day writing. Recording my actions. It is art, craft, discipline, insanity. Why would one sacrifice it all for a life of writing? poverty, ruined relationships, the search for peace. Because I have to.

But tonight, there is nothing to write. I am silent. The page is blank.