Noah Repp

"It's nothing short of an impossibility", I thought to myself. "It'll never happen." These are the words that come to mind  whenever I look at a blank screen.  Bereft of the twists of tongue  that make reality visible,  I find myself resorting to flowery terms  to push something, anything,  across from the barren scape of my mind  into the increasingly daunting void.  It does not work, only serving  to exhaust the thesaurus of my mind.  I feel, by all accounts, foolish. Perhaps it is my music.  It is September—  certainly no time for Christmas music.  What am I thinking?  If only I find the right song for the right moment,  perhaps the words will spew from my mind unbounded.  And yet, I know this is nothing more than a ruse my mind has conjured up.  Were I to listen to the discordant shrieks of a rat  pogo sticking across a violin,  my productivity would not get any worse,  nor would Orpheus himself  make my output any better. Why am I doing this in the first place?  Why would I, in the prime of my life,  forgo the seeking of social interaction  to sit in the library alone at a table for four?  It may well be an escape mechanism  to avoid the reality that I am uncomfortable  with not having an escape.  To sit, alone,  maintaining the facade of productivity  to feel good when I walk away: at least I TRIED! Yet thinking of myself in that way  curls my stomach.  I cannot bear to be a person  that is satisfied with failure.  I cannot bear to be a man  that gluts himself on the bare minimum  while others achieve the aspirations they seek. My eyes feel as if  they are being pulled down by a counterweight.  Widening them does little to appease  whatever lack they feel:  they protest as I work  and praise as I weaken.  My back feels as if it has been tightened  to the point of a violin string.  I straighten and slump as needed to sate it,  praying that any such movement  will loosen the twine. It is nothing short of impossible. At the deepest depths of lack, I face that hated idea once more.  Whatever regret I feel now will be undone a hundredfold  if only,  if only,  if only  I break free.  If I succeed, I will have joined the echelon  of those I envy in success. I cannot accept where I am at.  To remain here  will be to admit defeat.  To admit that I am wasted:  that I cast my lot into the wrong pile. Perhaps I will be left behind.  Nothing but a footnote at the back of a reference,  of an edition now outdated. But for the one editor  who saw fit to mark me as such,  thank you. I write for you.