• Bored with my homework,
    I started to tap my pencil on the paper.
    Taps became scratches,
    Scratches became lines,
    Lines became… something more,
    Something tangible.

    Out from my pencil fell a box.
    A simple box,
    of ordinary height and weight,
    Nothing special really.

    But then it opened…
    In the box there were words.
    Not sitting at the bottom collecting dust;
    These words were swimming, flying,
    running, jumping, climbing,
    all around the box!
    These words were Alive

    All manner of words inhabited this box;
    Some arranged themselves into neat little rows,
    Telling of the day.
    Others ran wildly about,
    Trying to make sense of thoughts,
    Ever changing.
    And others drifted,
    From one thing to another.
    They floated about the box, bumping into each other,
    Making new words, new ideas.
    They came together in the center of the box
    And created a work of fiction;
    Entirely of the mind and little of experience.

    The words noticed me
    staring into they’re poorly drawn box.
    Noticed my pencil
    poised above a clean sheet of paper.
    They leaped at me!

    All at once they were in my eyes,
    my ears, my mouth;
    They covered my hand.
    Moving it and the pencil it held across the paper,
    I was little more than a puppet on strings.

    The words flew through my mind,
    Running round and round and round;
    From me to the paper and back again, for more ideas,
    more fuel for this inferno of words.

    I watched as they danced across the page.
    They told me their story:
    How they came to be in the box,
    How only people can set them free.
    So much to tell.
    All of it flowing across the page,
    then gone again as the words shifted and reformed
    into more words, more of the story.

    The words suddenly stop and lay flat on my paper.
    The assignment was done,
    yet so many words still filled my head.
    These words were fun:
    plays on words, quips and quirks,
    a few were poems,
    some were stories,
    all waiting to be told, to be freed.

    In a moment I have another sheet
    and the words did their dance once more,
    this time for fun.
    Now I always carry paper and pencil.
    When the words want to play
    I write them, later they are shared

    So next time you are writing,
    for work of for fun,
    and your pencil wanders from the task,
    Let it.
    You never know
    what might spill out.