A Writer’s Petition

Feast of Martyrs, Feast of Lilith | 11 Quintilis 2025 | Waning Gibbous Buck Moon

This is a vent about writing. [It is also a prayer, and a freewrite, and now a blog post.]

Sitting down to write is sure to give me a panic attack. My stomach fills with acid, my back turns to lead, the top of my skull threats little beads of aching pain.

Every time I've sat down to write and couldn't, every project unfinished or finished not to the standards of perfection which frame my sense of worthwilness, every dodge and excuse and failure wells up through my calves and thighs and hips and ribs, my pectorals and wrists and fingertips, my neck and skull and teeth and face, and sits heavy like so many gargoyles on an ediface of shame.

I am a cathedral to the Unwritten Word, struggling through rites and ablutions to make the unformed real. My worries and fears spill ink to cover their shame, my critics don sackcloth and repent of all my labors left undone.

Sing, O Goddesses and Gods of the Scribes, of Essays and Songs, of Letters and Novels, of Drafts and Edits and Footnotes and Epigraphs. Sing of my work and its adrenaline prisons, its guilt cages and blank page prison walls. Sing, and in Singing, raise Your voices to that cathartic pitch which shatters the glass between my pen and paper. Let my imperfect metaphors spill and stain these pages in a rancourus, rebelious, insurectionary, revolutionary revelry. Make shape stories out of brainfog and clear flowing fountains where saltstack tears only crusted.

Oh Lords and Ladies of the flickering, playful flame of uninterupted, dynamic expression, do you hear my prayer? How shall I consecrate a New Temple to you, How shall I restore your shrines and feretories to their rightful glory? Who am I, who stands with fear and trembling between conception and expression, who knows that Art is the Space between Media and Art, to partake of your subtle cult, when so often have I shyed away? Shall I make of me a Double, one to stand in my place and Not Write while I sneak away down hidden trails to plant footnotes and dedications by the light of a winking Moon? What vigil must I keep--or evade--what ghost or golem must I summon or fashion, to satisfy my fears and ward off the many dangers of misunderstanding or misarticulation which stalk the path of every letter, which run like hounds at the feeding bell of every keystroke.

You the wonderfully incomplete and in-im-mediate shadow-self who deigns to act when I would Act but, partial and temporary where my mind would express with totality the eternity of the concept in itself, cannot manifest myself, may you be sanctified by the lanterns of expression which I can only float like paper spectres between, caught on and brushed and pulled into the currents of that flame where I seek my culmination. Oh Lord of awe-full, awesome, awe-striken Brightness, make my petition worthy of your reception, and make the one who prays it a steady bearer of your light and ink.