When Your Muse Has Gone Missing

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I’ve looked in the closet of my childhood bedroom and the pockets of my worn-down jeans. I’ve searched in the sky at the edge of the sunset and in the summer storm that raged outside my window. I’ve scoured through books and in between the pages of unsaid conversations. I’ve turned over my morning rituals and my evening routines. I’ve even rummaged through seashells at the edge of the ocean and ridden my bike into the woods of my youth. And yet, somehow, I can’t find my muse.

I’ve gone hunting for the inspiration that used to live at the fringes of my soul and would burst with words that wouldn’t let me breathe until they were out. I’ve turned over my heart to see if I could find her. She used to soothe my heavy chest by releasing the weight onto the page. She used to bridge the gap between uncertainty and hope and the space between pain and healing. She was my confidant, my friend, and I thought that we would be in this thing called life together until the end.

And yet. I feel as if she has deserted me and gone somewhere without me. She has left me to the depths of my unknowing and to the anxiety that coils against my lungs. I used to wake up with her soothing whisper in my ear until words on blank pages would naturally appear. Now I wake up worried about everything, and my language seems lost or incomplete. It’s as if every time I try to write, I am building a…