Sometimes     

Diary of a playwright    

Sometimes writing for yourself isn’t enough.

Sometimes writing for the page isn’t enough.

Sometimes in the middle of the night

when the world has gone to sleep

and you’re drinking chamomile tea

beside a fluorescent lamp,

sometimes you get visited by other voices.

Sometimes the voices of these worlds

make contact with you, and bother you, and they sit like birds

on your shoulder until you give them time.

Sometimes if you’re quick, you get a pen and paper,

or you’re in front of your laptop and you transcribe the experience 

just in time before they run off.

Sometimes the voices nag you at inconvenient times,

like when you at work or

when you driving.

Sometimes broken voices find their way to you,

and you wonder what they doing here

because the two of you can’t possibly be related.

Sometimes strange voices make their way to you,

and you do resonate, but you feel unqualified

to carry their story to the finish line.

Sometimes you’re ready to tell the story,

and you show up at 8 ‘o clock sharp at your desk,

but then the voices have left to go find A More Suitable Playwright.

Sometimes they stay, and they look you dead in the eye,

other times they just like to be a tease,

and then sometimes you pull your hair out

and wonder about the sense of humour from where these voices come.

And then sometimes, just sometimes, you get it right.

You place the voice in a chair, you close the door

and you tell the voices that they are going to stay with you.

And sometimes they do.

Sometimes they stay with you all the way until the curtain call,

until you’ve found actors to play them,

and costumes to dress them in,

and an audience to watch them.

Sometimes their voices land well with the ones who watch,

and the ones who listen well.

And sometimes, just sometimes,

those ones rise up, they applaud, and the voices

that were once only the voices in your head,

the birds sitting on your shoulder,

has become everyone’s voice.