I write. But I’m Not A Writer.
A tedious, trivial—almost empty act. She does it, without fire; without a silent, lengthy pause. With her, a pen, a piece of paper.
And sometimes, before her, a blinking, ticking cursor. A mumbling, glaring screen. She is without the impassioned anguish of writers, without the poiesis of the brilliant, sometimes troubled, bearers of the pen. But she is writing.
The -er is appended unto a word, when the word deserves to have a tag grafted unto it. When the word boasts a doer whose brilliance is so vast his skeleton holds flesh both foreign and intriguing. Other times, an -esque is appended, when its owner bears a language that stretches and contorts enough. Kafkaesque.
But when you are like her, a suffix is unnecessary. You cannot name a bearer whose task is empty. Whose vessel does not contain enough. She wields the pen. She puts ink to canvas. But she cannot append the -er.
She fears the tag. Much like those around her. There is a collective revulsion. Because there is collective fear. A fear I recognize in my veins, in my wince, in my utter disgust. Because it is a lie.
It feels like a lie. A lie I tell myself repeatedly, if only to conceal my mediocrity. A lie we tell ourselves, if only to conceal our mediocrity. So we tell ourselves that we do, but that we aren’t. Not completely.