Hearth

 I need to go home.

For the past three weeks I have been subjecting myself to inordinate and ultimately irrational amounts of writing, working, and increasingly less sleep. 

Let me explain. I never thought I had a short story in me, much less three. The first one was special; it was the first one I ever wrote, never thinking I could sustain a plot line to save my life. The second one I wrote nine chapters of in one day. The third one was a cruel kind of child: it nearly took all of me and my decreasing work hours and demanded that it be clothed in words I was losing more and more. When it was done I felt as though I was the Christ on the cross, with his final breath and words. 

The real world calls, as it has always done. I had to work amid my writing, for there are bills and rent to pay, family to support, vices to keep alive. 

Now I am spent, always, always. I feel naked. Worse: I feel armorless in the mornings now, grasping for reality and finding just phone calls that go unanswered and more words that are oh so empty. 

I have trekked to the realms of politics and existentialism and history, each time creating more worlds, each time inevitably losing myself. All the stimulation came with a price: I am nothing now. 

I need to go home.