I have writer’s block, and please don’t tell me I don’t.

This morning I awoke early, before dawn, and couldn’t go back to sleep.

I feel like I am going to explode … and can’t grasp relief. Relief comes from writing, and it’s not there.

I’ve read plenty lately that says writer’s block is a myth. It’s really laziness. Or lack of motivation. Or fear. An unwillingness to sit your butt in the chair and just do it.

As my friend Kristine says, “I’m calling bullshit on that.”

I know what I know, and I’m so tired of being told I don’t know how I really think. Or feel. Or want. Being dismissed. Listen up: I’m not waiting for the Muse to show up. It’s me who’s gone MIA.

This pain is not that of a bruise. It’s not tenderness, or an ache. It’s an excruciating, festering carbuncle, an infection deep below the surface. Rather like a volcano. Except unlike lava, pus is poison. Unchecked it spreads, and at the very least can cause a scar. If not sepsis. And creative death.

For decades my outlet for depression and anxiety has been writing. What now? I need the sharp scalpel of the pen, the soothing gauze of paper, to open this capsule of pain. Pen and paper I have, but not a steady, studied hand to open and release what it trapped underneath.

In my scariest place, the fear gremlin tells me I’ll never write anything of significance again. Or just anything. Ever.

And if I’m not a writer, then who am I?