Not a Back-Burner Day

I have few hours and many projects today. I’m working on two medical writing assignments, I’m teaching a junior high class about writing and settings, and I’m overdue for a blog post. It’s a simple fact that my creative writing must stay on the back-burner today. So what did I just do?

I wrote a poem.

There are days when the urge to write is easily lost amid the rubble and scree of daily obligations. And then there are days when the urge becomes urgent, and nothing can conspire to keep the words trapped in their little dark cages inside.

Those are the days we writers live for. The days when we remember that we are, in fact, writers, even when it seems more appropriate to be something else – something more pedestrian, like employees or spouses or parents.

So we spill out our words and gleefully watch them spread across the white page like a bloodstain, and we promise those noisy, daily obligations that they can have their way with us again tomorrow.

But not today. Today is not a back-burner day.

Today I write.