WRITING IS LIKE . . .

I've been asked to elaborate. I'll forgo the simile for the metaphor: writing is the best of times; the worst of times. Writing is a curse, a blessing, a calling; a vocation, a way of life, an escape hatch from life. Writing is the dragon that lives underneath my floorboards. The one I incessantly feed for fear it may turn and devour my ass. Writing is the friend who doesn't return my phone calls; the itch I'm unable to scratch; a dinner invitation from a cannibal; elevator music for a narcoleptic. Writing is the hope of lifting all boats by pissing in the ocean. Writing isn't something that makes me happy like a good cup of coffee. It's just something I do because not writing, as I've found, is so much worse.