it was a blank page. Her hardened gaze caused no words to appear. No flourishing language to embellish the explanation.No distractions to explain the lack of written monologue. Not even her over-reactive inner turmoil could explain away the absence of narrative. It was simply a blank page.

She had quit her job 3 weeks ago. It hadn’t gone well. “Not a Team Player, didn’t adjust to the new environment even after 4 years at the location... lazy, not willing to change to fit in with the group, lack of earned respect from her co-workers. A black mark for bringing her here.” All of these were just words. The words her former colleagues had used to explain away her unhappiness, her impassioned, impertinent questioning (why?) and finally her reasoning to leave a company she had committed to for almost 15 years overall. All of these were judgements  slithering from tongues to ears of those who held rings and pins and keychains distributed for 25 years of service, 30 years, even 40...all in the same box, the same illusion. SHE on the other hand was a traveler in her own mind, which had never helped her situation with them... Seattle, San Francisco and now back to the midwest. Nevermind that it had been with the same company... same day, different scenery. Although at least on the coast her work days were filled with friendships earned from crazy days and even crazier nights where bonds were forever fueled with alcohol, cigarettes, live music and stories sworn never to be repeated in the daylight hours.

It was a blank page still. Nonsensical letters strewn together about unimportant things don’t fill a page, they just create clutter, and some could argue clutter is more of a void then something empty altogether. Meaningless. Pretend protagonist. Proudly pretentious.  Those are the only words of import in this snapshot life story.

Empty urn, begging to be filled. Death creeping in a little more each day with spreadsheets, missed moments, assessments, comfortable slacks befitting your age, giving into the cliche cog and laughing at the women who puts crackers in her purse at lunch. The women who has been the only truth in a square box of judgements and pettiness personified.

The urn is not so empty at 35. A mouth filled with the ash of false pride and a bloated body, shrinking under the scrutiny. The years of stepford soliloquy fill the urn quickly with the burnt ash of competency, of blank pages charred with clutter, summers spent burning beneath the false idols of misplaced loyalty.

Eyes blinking away the corpse of self, offered up on the altar of capital carnage until one day the urn bursts open, dragonflame of a heart still beating, begging, still questioning. A new form, washed in flame emerges from the dust of the indifference whispering still, “Why?”

There is no such thing as a simple blank page.