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'"