Clear and concise sentences,
said the brief,
slapped across my phone in bold.
A writing competition – behold,
a paid prize and published name as a reward.
I wanted to enter, to be part of that world.
But I thought;
How can my written words be clear and concise?
How can I express myself in all its complications
without twisting lingo and diction
around surfaces and timeframes,
breaking what it means to start
with a beginning and end with a punch line?
You may as well say we want your short stories
free from free-flowing universes,
free from experimental style,
free from life.
We want you to stop experimenting with form and style, s
top weaving the intricacies of life
around a verb and noun combination,
stop alluding to metaphors
and repeating alliterations.
And use humour too, it says.
Capture the beauty of life
within an accessible prose
that entertains and
makes your audience laugh.
I try, and I try,
to be simple,
to be sweet,
to be subtle and execute with pragmatism.
But, alas, I cannot.
Because these words grow within
in an unusual fashion,
they take shapes unexpected
and follow alluring twists and turns.
So no.
I will not write for your brief.
I will, instead,
keep my prose to myself.
Let it build in drop boxes and Google drives,
a digital footprint so complex
it matches only the patterns of my mind.
I will not write for your brief
and instead be perpetually perplexed
by my own written verbosity.
Watching it form across the note sections of my phone;
words piled with thoughts from the day,
an inward inflection,
a navel-gazing exercise.
I take a deep breath,
thinking of how this writing competition
will never manifest in my future,
how I’ve missed my chance
because of an impossible instruction.
And then,
I continue my morning routine, thinking…
Your brief wasn’t written for me,
so why should I write for it.
Leave a Reply