Deleatur

Our heroine lies draped across her unmade bed, pen in hand, arm curled around notebook. She is not writing but crossing out words. She crosses them out six or seven at a time, with lines that finish in elegant loops. She writes a few more, then crosses them out again. Her cast wide open window lets cool air blow in and over her body. Cool air on naked skin, she concentrates on the sensation until she no longer thinks Why? Why won't words erupt forth, good usable lava flow of words, unstuck unstilted words, why won't they pour onto the page, why won't they deliver her from doldrums and vapidity and meaningless transience and the ache of nostalgia and the fear of death and doing three more dishes, folding two more shirts?