I’ve been feeling a strange resistance related to writing for a while now.

I feel it inside me - a bezoar in my gut, a cholesterol buildup a little to the left and below my heart. A plastic tumour of overwhelm and constipated frustration all around the front of my brain. I’ll start typing, and a fever hot weighted blanket of sleepy static will fall heavy on my mind.

It has felt very hard to think.

— Emmanuel Quartey, Riffs, resistance, play, 2024