Lost Thoughts

Dear Kid,

I’m running out of ideas.

I’m not sure how much more I can give to this world, seeing as my thoughts are becoming increasingly mundane with every passing day. A window that I once stared out of, concocting characters dancing across the grass below, is now just a window. The glass is dusty. I should probably get around to cleaning it, but all I can do is pace and look at the cleaning solution like it’s a ticking time bomb. But that’s not what matters to you.

I’d be lying if I said that I don’t miss the spark that came with imagination, but I’d also be lying if I said that it wasn’t nice to have a roof over my head. Running water. Food. Most days are back and forth like this. Give and take. No more messy notebooks, but at least I have light. No more inspiration striking my stomach like lightning, but I will live. I am living now, I think, though I keep wasting our time because I’m not sure how much I have left in me but I’m letting myself become distracted by fancy prose and metaphors. Forgive me. This might be my last chance to use them properly. A friend of mine who went through this told me that creating art a month after the procedure feels like using scissors with your non-dominant hand. At least my house won’t be taken away.

Anyway, I’m not sure how much more I can give to this world, but at least I know exactly how much it can give me.

Every idea might be my last, so against my better judgement I’ve been scribbling them down wherever I can - napkins, clothes, a piece of toast at one particularly frantic breakfast. A part of me knows that this will make things harder later, when I have a list of ideas and no means to create them. A few days ago, I came up with the idea that I might pass them on to someone better off to write, someone who hasn’t had to bargain away their creativity for life and who never will. I remembered a kid from a well off family on the other side of town I’d spoken to one or two times; from my memory, she’d seemed friendly, though a bit shy. Most importantly, she’d had that spark of life to her, as every writer should. Or, perhaps more important than most importantly, her family was on scale tilting towards wealthy, meaning she would never have to make a desperate income from selling her thoughts. She would never have to resort to filling out a government form online confirming that she consented to exchanging her creativity for cash, eventually leaving her crying over a letter that would never match up to the books she’d dreamt of as a little girl. I can only hope that they use my imagination well, that they put it towards new concepts of clean energy or solving world hunger rather than dreaming up new weapons. But it’s out of my hands, and what other option do I have, anyway, other than to burn my napkins, clothes, and toast? Then no one would see my almost-creations, and I’d rather you massacre them than they never leave my head.

So I thought to myself, I can’t just give the kid my lists and say “do what you will.” No, I need to write her a letter, delivered with care. Forgive the tear stains on this letter, kid, I know they’re cheesy but I’ve got my favorite soundtrack on, the one that used to send my fingers flying across the keyboard as I got lost in other worlds that I had created. But it’s not making me feel anything anymore. Something feels missing in my brain, like one of those circular, elementary school electrical circuits where if you disconnect one wire, the little lightbulb won’t turn on.

When I was younger and time stretched before me, I’d wondered what my final work of writing would be. I’d assumed it would be my last because I would die soon after its publication in that dramatic tortured artist way. I never thought it would be because I couldn’t afford to go on. Unfortunately, I think I’ve found my final piece, and I still have many years to go. You’re reading it, kid. Aren’t you special?

I took a pen and paper out of a drawer and sat down at the kitchen table, the toast stained with sharpie still molding on a glass plate. I began like this:

Dear Kid.

Boy do I wish I could remember her name. I think it began with an M. Margaret, maybe, or Mackenzie. Hopefully that won’t matter to you, I really am sorry. Ink dove off the tip of the pen clenched in my shaking fist and seeped determinedly into the page, a soldier on its final mission.

Dear Kid,

I’m running out of ideas.