seven year olds and dishwashing soap

i love hearing a seven year old's imagination come to life. i often wonder if they even see what i see or if their eyes put them in a completely alternate universe. running through a house suddenly becomes dodging skyscrapers, and jumping off chairs (however...i wouldn't suggest letting them do this often) suddenly becomes skydiving. there is no end to the way their brains can compose a beautiful scene. i hear his screams and conversations and his voice inflections, informing me that there are two people involved in this conversation, even though i can only see one of them. he whizzes past me, yelling something about how the world is coming to an end if they don't take care of the supervillian across town. i smile and giggle to myself as i get back to washing the dishes, remembering the days when i used to be the same exact way. but life happened to me. and when i start a conversation with someone only i can see, it causes people to question my sanity. when i jump off chairs and run around my apartment, people laugh. it's just part of growing up. i hear his tiny footsteps on the floor above my head, and i feel the immense innocence emanating through the house. i know i'm supposed to be cleaning, but i'm fascinated by this story he's written with his toys. a laugh echoes through the house, the kind of laugh that comes from deep within your belly. the kind that makes everyone around laugh. and so i laugh with him, and i don't care if i look crazy. all i know is that childlike innocence makes me happy. all i care about in this moment is the fact that i'm finally getting a vacation from my life. there's nothing more i desire than to run upstairs and join him. but i know i'm too old for that sort of thing now, so i turn my focus once again to washing the dishes. he runs around the living room again, shooting invisible webs out of his hands. then something about let's go get the guy! and he's off again.

je n'ai rien à dire (i have nothing to say)

i'm sitting on the computer,
so i might as well start typing
and see what flows out of this empty head of mine.
things haven't gotten much better.
my writing is still lacking...something,
i can't quite put my finger on what it is.
i'm falling in love with God all over again,
so that can't be the issue.
i'm not going to play doctor and
try to figure out what the problem is, either.
because whether or not i like it,
this emptiness keeps coming back.
sometimes, i think it's just simply that
i've emptied my brain's poetic thought onto paper
and there's nothing left,
that it's gonna take a while before
things are back to the way they should be.
but i can't handle that answer.
i can't handle the thought of having nothing to say.
i can't handle the fear that this isn't temporary,
that i will never be able to write like i once did again.
and i'm sure someone is looking at this
and thinking that i'm a writer,
that this prose is striking...but the truth is,
i'm lacking.
i'm lacking that feeling i would get
when my passion would surge through my fingertips
onto the keyboard and do the talking for me.
i feel like i'm missing that functionality
that my writing once had. it used to be so dramatic
and yet so real. so poetic
and yet so simple.
and now it's just a lazy excuse
to sit around on a computer and try and
remember where i put my creative mind.
i must have replaced it with logic.
will i ever be able to write again like i once did?
and if not, is this just part of an artist's growing up?
and if so, will i ever get used to this way of creating?
and if not, will i always just be longing for the good old days?