Once Upon a Bad Disposition

I once knew a girl.

She drew. She painted. She wrote. She played a guitar.

She crafted and sang and drove a fast car
to the mountains and back just for fun.

To the beach and back just for sun.

This girl was the author of her own destiny.
She listened to few and followed whims as if they were
winding country roads begging to be explored.

She read five books at once and loved them all so much
she slept with them in her bed like secret lovers
tucked under her arms and legs. Like lovers,
some were fiction, some history, some self-help and discovery.
Some were empty and she poured herself into them and got back nothing
but a case of writer's cramp and a bad disposition.

Some were just about
cars.

Then one morning, she woke up and realized she'd spent
then entire previous day without one creative thought outside of how to
turn half a chicken breast and an old bag of salad into a
meal for four.

And even that wasn't terribly creative.

She wondered when it had happened - the leaking away of her spirit - the slow, steady drain of such a full cask of creativity.

She thought about blaming others for it. They sucked it out of me, she thought. They drained me on a daily basis. They...they...they...

That's when it occurred to her. They hadn't done anything. As a matter of fact,
those around her had done
nothing but pour
themselves
into
her
and had
gotten back nothing
but a case of writer's cramp and a bad disposition.

It wasn't their fault. It was her own.

Her creativity wasn't drained at all - only siphoned away and hidden deep beneath the floorboards of her overly anxious and
misdirected heart.

Why - there it is, right there. Full as ever
and just as ridiculous.

Waiting.

Waiting for that girl to come and pick it up and dust it off. To tap it
once again and let it flood out all over in
great sticky clumps of sparkle
and goo.

Tap.
Tap.
Tap.