The Ribbon

"At the edge of understanding, the border of the known"

"The breaking point of reason, where logic is dethroned"

"Where sense is defenseless and festers on the bone"

"One writer fights a cycle, trying to write a way back home"

"In 'Night Springs'"

"Tonight's episode:"

"'The Ribbon'"

We open, our protagonist brash, pragmatic, fantasist

Trapped within a cabin, frantic, grappling with a manuscript

Passionately grasping for a catalyst, but the syntax isn't landing

Grabs the draft out from the carriage and abandons it

He doesn't really know quite what he's writing, but he has to

Sits enraptured in the flow of what he's typing

Cramping wrists, his hands in fits

The hammers slam the characters

They writhe and dance and twist

But never seem to parse more than "surviving"

As the grammar shifts

A bulb, it flickers for a moment

Darkness falls for just a second

But it lingers, forms unspoken

Hark the call, the shadows beckon

Swallowed dawn, still all-consuming

Every corner lurking, looming

Hear the ichor hymns so soothing

As the screaming silence deafens

Another page, a hurried scrawl

A night replays, a dozen more

Another failed and crumpled ball

Of "almost, maybe" on the floor

Framed within the maze within the print

His escape from all this hinges

On which page becomes the door

Existence is cast in the answers we write

To riddles and chapters that can't be defined

Pigments of black and the parchment of white

The figments they track through the dark to the light

The hammers and keys and the patterns they weave

The fragments of me that they trap in between

We all have to write on the pages we're given

But you can't live life on both sides of the ribbon

Tied to the ribbon

"Legacy"

"It is the dream of any creative to leave their mark, indelible, on the world around them"

"But be careful what marks such an obsession might leave on you"

Another chapter opens

But our hero isn't sure

If the pattern is unbroken

Has he penned this page before?

Is he writing what he's lived

Or now reliving what he's written?

Every end with failed beginnings

Cast adrift within the lore

On a lake that turned to ocean

Drowning under weight of legacy

When any sentence could be sentenced

As the last they ever see

Our pages pass relentless

Count or not, there is no remedy

And so, he sits again

Attempts to pen preemptive threnody

Amorphous in memoriam

In effigy, uncertain

Unsure if all this really is himself

At least a version?

But these whispers grip the narrative

Treat sense with bleak aversion

Tendrils bend and break immersion

Twisting cursive through recursion

His words branch out in paths

Too dark to follow through trees

With pages piled so high

He's lost the forest for leaves

No saying what's to believe

It doesn't want him to leave

And so these pages end up bound

To make the story repeat

Wake up, day starts as the night falls

See what dark part of your mind calls

You can't fight what you write

And you write what we like

Find the light, you might see how the bright fall

You'll need the proper tools

To get a proper service!

You won't believe the things that hide

Right there beneath the surface!

Hopelessly floating through tomes

With no way of knowing

If you are composing or you're just quoting

The prose you're sewing

Ergo ergodic, eroding your ego

Going for broke, but just broken

No fixer-upper

Like the coffee pot a' flowing!

A hero's journey burdened

By the characters deployed

When all your thousand faces

Are so narratively void

Were the adjectives employed

Worth the marriage you destroyed?

You know hunting is a hobby

The whole family can enjoy

Deep in the dark and winding eaves of your mind

Read from a Saga, blind, but reaching in kind

Leads down a path where leaves and secrets entwine

Even apart, two heroes, one storyline

Small town — and I know the narrative conventions

Establishing shots in the dark

A plot with an arc beyond all comprehension

I'll be the first person to admit

The present is tense and

Not sure if I'll get these words to fit

The presence descending

I hear it calling my name

I feel me falling away

Chasing these pages, but questioning my agency

Tasked with a story to break

I hear it calling my name

I feel me falling away

Am I a character? Actor? A passenger?

Cast from the shores of a lake?

Existence is cast in the answers we write

To riddles in chapters that can't be defined

Pigments of black and the parchment of white

The figments they track through the dark to the light

The hammers and keys and the patterns they weave

The fragments of me that they trap in between

We all have to write on the pages we're given

But you can't live life on both sides of the ribbon

Tied to the ribbon

"Creativity"

"It is the impetus of any artist to pour themselves into their work"

"But pour too much and you might not like what you find at the bottom of the bottle"

Our hero once again attempts to find the words he lacks

And peers between the lines to see the lines observing back

A scratch all too familiar and — oh! The surface cracks

What's the matter, Alan? We can't both be worthless hacks

Now, I know what you're thinking

"This is crazy! Oh, he can't exist!"

You could have made a killing

Just embraced a little masochist

'Stead you're dried up

Trying to earn a living from a manuscript

But have you tried, for just one second

Living as the man you script?

I'm the parts you were ashamed of

I'm the parts you tried to fight

I'm the parts you told yourself

Didn't keep you awake at night

I'm the part of you that's better

You just can't concede I'm right

So, you poured me into pages

Then I guess I'm just your type

You meld work with your self-worth

But, tell me, what is that sell for?

And was the journey through hell worth

How short you fell on the bell curve?

Then, one day, they'll forget you, ooh!

But I've stories to tell first

'Cause I'm that face that you gave them to be you

And, baby, I'm well versed

What am I

When you're already a shadow of yourself?

Tell me, who would look at this

And then take that down off the shelf?

You had it, buddy! All of it!

The fame, the glam, the wealth

But what's it worth if you won't play

The hand the round has dealt?

"Nightmares don't use logic"

Yeah, we know that you can read

Sat there, hoping for the credits

But it's me who's supposed to lead

All that hokum in your head

But where's the quote to make you see?

That, perhaps, you're antithetical

To the poetry of me!

Existence is cast in the answers we write

To riddles in chapters that can't be defined

Pigments of black and the parchment of white

The figments they track through the dark to the light

The hammers and keys and the patterns they weave

The fragments of me that they trap in between

We all have to write on the pages we're given

But you can't live life on both sides of the ribbon

Tied to the ribbon, the ribbon, the ribbon

Which side of the ribbon, the ribbon, the ribbon?

Another chapter ended

But not an arc adjourned

A narrative repeating

For a plot he can't discern

He's writing a Departure

But he's still yet to learn

That every line he writes

Must always end at the Return

"And there you have it"

"A vicious cycle scored by the hammer of keys and the ring of the typewriter"

"A writer cursed to relive his own words, trapped in a world of his own making"

"A novel concept"

"Everyone likes to get lost in a good book"

"But be careful what you read"

"In 'Night Springs'"