I dropped my inspiration while walking down a warm street, getting jostled by people who seemed to do it on purpose. It just fell from between my hands and rolled around on the ground, like a bad penny. It finally went through a crack in the street, falling down into a dark endless space.

As the sun rose and hung up right above me, I stood there for a while questioning myself. People walked by, looking like nothing had changed. And it hadn’t for them. But in my head things were different. Suddenly, I felt like someone had carved out a part of my insides and what remained was a bleeding, pulsating void.

My inspiration left me, in an unceremonious fashion and left me to figure out the rest. Had I crawled around on all fours and shouted into the bottomless pit, I knew it wouldn’t come back. I knew it was gone.

I turned my back on a closed chapter and walked away. I think I must have looked normal but I felt a knot forming in my chest. It’s still there. It will continue to exist, becoming tighter and more complicated, until I find what I lost.