It just sat there

I had a line. "Did she know." I read it four times at the kitchen table. It did not move. It just sat there looking at me.

I tried the next line. The next line I wrote was about the next line. I do that. I put a hat on a sentence and call it a sentence. But it is just me in a hat.

I put the pen down at half ten. Went to the bookshop. Did not open the book in the back room. I do not want to push it. A pushed line is a dead thing in a coat.

Here is the bit I will not say. What if the line does not come back? What if that is it? I am the one with the line. That is the whole job. If the line is gone I am just a man in a kitchen with a pen.

I wrote that here so I can tell myself I did not mean it. That is the trick. Write the real thing. Then say you were only joking. I do that a lot.