By Charles M. Sumid     Copyright 2025     Written 2025

For those who answer the uncommissioned call, regardless of deadline or reward.

The clock is a blunt instrument,
its second hand a tiny drum
beating not for the heartbeat of the story
but for the unblinking calendar.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
The idea, first, was a whisper of light,
a secret map drawn on the insides of the eyelids.
It was the uncommissioned song,
sung just for the joy of the sound,
the rush of fingers on keys,
a conversation with silence.

Now, silence is a luxury.
The muse, a nervous bird,
flees the shadow of the due date,
hunted by the word count,
a numerical cage that shrinks
with every coffee-stained page
that remains stubbornly blank.

I write now not for the truth of the thing,
but for the finish of it.
The sentences are forced marches,
pressed into service,
their shine dulled by the frantic need
to reach the designated shore.

Submit. The final act.
A surrender.
The email sent,
the contract fulfilled,
the tyranny temporarily lifted.

And yet,
the ghost of that first, free melody
still echoes in the sudden quiet.