A Goodbye Letter to Writer’s Block #BlogchatterHalfMarathon @Blogchatter

You arrived without warning, 
no knock, no whisper — 
just an unsettling silence 
that settled itself over me 
like uninvited fog. 

I waited for you to leave, 
but you stayed. 
You grew roots in every word I could not find, 
built walls in every sentence that stopped mid-breath, 
and silenced ink before it agreed 
to meet the page. 

I thought you were temporary — 
a pause, 
a rest, 
a small mercy for an overworked mind. 
But you lingered, 
silent yet heavy, 
an invisible lodger in my creative chest. 

Days dissolved into weeks, 
and I drank tea after tea, 
hoping caffeine could outrun you. 
But you sat there — 
smug, persistent — 
with the patience of winter 
and the cruelty of drought. 

You turned my journals into deserts. 
Blank pages mocked me 
with more honesty than mirrors could. 
Each sentence I attempted 
fell apart midair, 
like birds forgetting how to fly 
after a long absence from the sky. 

You taught me new definitions of failure: 
not in rejection letters, 
not in unread drafts, 
but in the paralysis 
of thought itself. 
The kind that squeezes the breath 
out of imagination 
and leaves behind 
a skeletal outline of all that might have been. 

You see, I tried talking to you— 
politely, then desperately. 
I wrote to you in margins, 
pleaded in half-formed metaphors, 
and sometimes, 
even cursed you in haikus 
that didn’t quite rhyme. 

You laughed, I think. 
Your laughter had no sound, 
but I felt it in the heavy hum 
of my abandoned keyboard. 

Still, in your silence, 
I found something I did not expect — 
myself, stripped of performance, 
staring at the rawness of my own need to create. 

When you took away my words, 
you forced me to remember 
why I chase them. 

Because writing, for me, is not hobby or art, 
but oxygen disguised as metaphor — 
a necessary illusion 
through which I breathe. 

But I also learned 
that even oxygen needs rhythm — 
inhalation, exhalation, 
presence, absence. 
Maybe you were the exhale. 
Maybe you were the stillness 
before the next storm of thought. 

And so, I stopped fighting you. 
I stopped threatening to replace you 
with productivity hacks 
and online prompts promising instant muse. 
Instead, 
I sat beside you. 
We shared a chair. 
I learned to listen to your silence. 

In that stillness, I found shapes — 
faint outlines of memories 
I had ignored for years. 
The sound of rain became a sentence again. 
The morning light learned the language of verbs. 
Even silence began to hum 
in iambic rhythm. 

You were not absence, 
you were cocoon. 
You taught me to molt expectations. 
All that I thought was control 
dissolved into patience. 

Now, as I trace these lines 
and see the ink steadying itself 
after months of trembling, 
I realize: 
you were not my enemy. 
You were my editor. 
You didn’t erase my words — 
you seasoned them. 
You let them marinate 
in discomfort until they tasted honest. 

Perhaps this is why 
words flow differently now — 
not with urgency, 
but with reverence. 
Each phrase arrives 
as if aware of its fragility, 
each image more cautious 
yet more alive. 

I do not blame you anymore. 
I thank you. 
You taught me that even silence writes, 
just not in the language I was expecting. 

So here it is — 
my goodbye letter, 
not written in anger, 
but in understanding. 

Goodbye, old drought. 
Goodbye to the clenched fist around what must not yet bloom. 
Goodbye to the fear of not being enough 
because no line felt like brilliance. 
Goodbye to the editing loop that began 
before a single word could live. 

You can leave now. 
Or stay, if you must — 
for I no longer mistake your stillness 
as failure. 
I have learned to rest 
without guilt. 
To pause 
without panic. 
To breathe 
without the promise of creation. 

If you ever return — 
and you will, 
as all weather does — 
I will greet you differently. 
I will make tea, 
light a candle, 
and let you sit quietly beside me 
while I wait for the next word 
to find its courage again. 

You see, I understand you now. 
You are not absence — 
you are space. 
You are the reset 
that every creator secretly needs 
but never admits to wanting. 

Goodbye, then — 
not as in farewell forever, 
but as in thank you for your service. 
Goodbye as gratitude. 
Goodbye as grace. 

Because in the stillness you gave me, 
I discovered 
that every word I had ever written 
was simply a letter to myself — 
and when I stopped writing, 
I finally learned how to listen 
to what those letters meant. 

I will remember our seasons — 
the heavy nights, 
the stubborn mornings, 
the taste of frustration sharpened by hope. 
And when I write again 
—as I am now— 
your ghost will nod from a distance, 
content that your silence 
did what noise could not. 

You were the mirror I refused to face. 
A teacher without voice. 
And now that I can see what you came to teach, 
I release you back into the ether 
from where all words first emerge — 
a place between thought and nothingness. 

So goodbye, again — 
for the last time, 
for now. 
I have stories to write. 
But you may rest, 
dear companion of my creative drought. 

Your lessons linger, 
but your shadow fades. 
And as I dip my pen in ink once more, 
I whisper a small, 
almost sacred truth: 

Not every silence means loss. 
Sometimes, 
it is only the sound 
of something beautiful 
taking shape 
beneath the patience of pause.

This post is a part of Blogchatter Half Marathon