missing

In a journal, newly purchased, I write that I need to start writing again, that I need to get back into the habit of observing in words. I read this phrase in Writing Fiction by Janet Burroway. I am on page four of this book. I am on page four or ten or fifteen of so many books, discarded in stacks on tables and shelves and floors around my apartment.

I have an afternoon free. I do not write my dissertation. I do not read more on x and y and c topics in philosophy. I do not even read about how to write a dissertation, or how to find the motivation to write a dissertation. I read a book on narrative craft in hopes of finding some motivation or inspiration to write anything at all today. I stop reading on page four. I write down that I need to get back into the habit of observing in words, that I need to start writing again. I open this page. I type that I need to get back into the habit of observing in words.

There was a time when I thought in prose, in narrative language, and poetry. When I was a storyteller. When my inner voice was at heart that of a writer.

She is gone, but before I can write that the question is there, Where did she go?

I hear this question in v's voice because it is a question that she asks me all the time: If you are not fully here, if you are not in your body, where are you? Where do you go?

I never have an answer to this question; it is always nowhere or I don't know.