Close to the Bone

There’s too many stories in my head
I want to tell them
so I can be free.

They begin by spilling onto the page in fragments
but which ones will stick there and make their journey to a reader somewhere
all jostle with each other and have characters who demand
‘give me my journey and my fate
or author you better beware.’

I want to keep up with my characters
but just as I am focusing another character says, ‘pick me.’

There are some who have an urgent voice and push others aside.
They want my attention first.
They emerge from both shadows and light, from optimism and despair.
Some days sorrow is stronger than the light.

They emerge from memory, and dreaming
nightmares and insight.

There are others who begin with promise and
fade away like puzzles that need more mulling over.
I have this feeling they’re going to resurface just when I want
to sleep or finish another story that isn’t quite there.

But I have to find focus.
Who is speaking the loudest,
strongest, most poetic, intriguing, and most questioning?

Sometime I have to take a break
centre myself by listening to music
Tracey Chapman, James Blunt, Dylan, 2cellos, and more
and in listening to their music more ideas emerge

I look for side tracks where the answers lie
in that stillness I see that my writing passion comes
from characters close to the bone.

They may originally come from the real world.
as I write of them they make me weep, laugh, and bring me extreme frustration
kind of like life
kind of life memory
kind of like my children in their teenage incarnations
kind of like imagination.

I could command them
but sometimes they’re sure they command me.

I am hoping Maya Angelou might dance with my characters
let my characters rise
And as they rise breathe into the soul of the story
become flesh on bone
feet on dancers
fingers on hands
soul on body.

They want to justify their existence
tell their story
do their dance
be close to the bone.

(C) June Perkins