Waiting for Inspiration

I sit down at my desk,
on the floor,
at a table.
Open my laptop,
my notebook,
try to clear my mind.
I tell myself, 
just write.

But some days
I feel like I’ve forgotten the only language I am fluent in,
unable to narrate my own life story.
My writing 
riddled with holes,
my ideas 
stolen from an author I don’t remember,
stuck to the back of my mind
like forgotten memories
tacked to a corkboard,
all of this
just recycled words.

I trip over paragraphs,
knees scraped on stanzas,
tangled by my metaphors,
landing in a pile of fractured words
and graphite dust.

I get distracted
by water droplets on the window
and 
snippets of yesterday,
feeling that what I’m supposed to say
is on the tip of my tongue,
but I can’t 
quite 
taste it.

Some days, I have nothing to say,
and I walk away,
waiting,
hoping for a stroke of genius,
an idea worth scrawling on the palm of my hand,
because some days, my words are calligraphy ink,
curling artwork, smooth lines and even brushstrokes.
But some days, 
they come out 
         clotted 
and 
                 cracking,
and I wonder,
what do I rely on 
when my own voice is inconsistent?
And I wonder,
if no one hears these words,
what do I need to tell myself?

These poems are supposed to be full of fire,
but some days
the most I can do 
                                             
                                                 is drift.