Bleeding

I’ve sat down to write it upwards of seven times.  I sit and I stare at a blank page and the blinking cursor.  I hate that blinking cursor, waiting, watching.  I hate it because it has seen me cry, it has seen emotions fly out of my heart onto the keys of my laptop, it knows that I can write.  The blinking cursor watches as I sit in front of a blank paper and cry.  It waits and it blinks, hoping that I can cry through it onto the paper, waiting for me to create something beautiful.  But all I do is weep, because it hurts to write, and I don’t like being hurt.  

It hurts to write because writing was once easy.  Until this year, writing was easy because I could reach inside myself and feel with depth without feeling damaged.  Until this year, writing was easy because I had nothing to cry about.  Until this year, writing was my passion.  
This year it hurts to reach inside my heart.  
It hurts to reach past my ribcage, push aside my nerves and muscles and tendons, and dig in my soul for words on a page. 
 I could type words without feeling, but that isn’t really writing.  I was told, “Writing is simple.  All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed,”  
I wish I could bleed; I wish that I didn’t feel like I don’t have any blood to spare.  
I wish that I could feel without hurting, write without thinking, love without asking, but that’s not how it works.

I have sat down to write it upwards of seven times.  I sometimes get some words on the page, but I’m too long-winded, because when I start bleeding I 
feel 
like 
I 
can’t 
stop.  I’ll sit and cry, praying for the bleeding to stop.  But it doesn’t stop, and the most I can do is ignore it.  The most I can do is keep the blood off the paper, not tell my teacher how much I am really dying inside.  The most I can do is pray that I’ll wake up tomorrow morning and the bleeding will be stopped.  The most I can do is hope that it’s a dream, and I’ll wake up and my essay will be finished.  

It isn’t her fault, and I don’t think she knows that she asks me to go home and bring two pages of blood to class next time.  And it doesn’t matter if it’s a comma or a period, because it’s my blood; and I don’t bleed with commas in the right places.  Sometimes it is easy, because some scars are worth having.  Sometimes I can sit down and feel my brother next to me.  I feel like I am sitting at Panda Express on a Monday night.  Sometimes I can bleed on a paper and make art.  Sometimes the bleeding is messy, and it ends up looking like a woman with runny mascara, trying to talk over the podium at church.  Sometimes it’s messy hair and jumbled words, because I don’t know exactly what I’m feeling.

I sat down to write it upwards of seven times.  Thinking each time that it would be the last.  I sat down to write, telling myself, “I told her that I would get it done this time.”  I sometimes get some words on the page, but mostly I see that blinking cursor.  I see the cursor and it sees me, blinking, it waits for me to bleed again.