#expression of self

“I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche

Today once again, the stimulus to mark down something on something, anything at all, holds me with indestructible clasp, not that I cannot release my self from that engulfed aura. The hold is, however light, it is not a stranglehold. I must soon exempt myself from straggling thoughts before…

I am happy where I am. 

I am capable of fulfilling all my desires. 

I am understanding of my circumstances. 

I am patience with myself.

I am elevating at each moment of my life. 

I am stable.

I am Queen of my jungle.

I am a nurturer of my emotions. 

I am compassionate. 

I am a creative ball of fire. 

I am a healer.

I am what I say I am and that’s me.

I am an individual that savors every word that passes beyond his lips, every syllable that enjoys a brief yet sensuous dance upon his tongue, every letter that deigns to move upward from his throat. I can take the language I’ve been trained to speak, to comprehend, to utilize, and bend it to my will, to make it display any image within the mind of any being that has been graced with the ability to read.

I can create a character, I can give him life, I can give him a reason to live, I can give him a past, emotions, dreams, goals, fears, regrets, friends, family, lovers, enemies. I can decide that I don’t like him and make his life end with a single sentence. I can change his story and make it so he was actually a she. I can make it so there is a world that she has lived in for her entire life, and others have lived there as well, even though she may never know them, I will always know them.

I am a writer. My characters are not just figments of my imagination that have managed to enter the mind of another marvelous human being through my manipulation of the English language. They are an extension of my emotions, my fears, and every other tiny little thing that makes me a human being. Sometimes, they exist merely for a moment before I tear up the piece of paper that they came to life upon, or hit backspace until the sentence they call home is gone from my screen. Sometimes I let them exist for longer, taking up a few pieces of paper, a few pages in a file lurking deep within my hard drive. But even they are eventually thrown away, lost to the void.

But are they truly gone? Or have they merely been accepted? Perhaps my characters that exist the longest exist because I cannot truly accept the part of me that they represent until I am ready. Maybe that is why I love to write, to create lives, memories, dreams: to ease myself into accepting the facts of my own life. I wonder, then, when my story comes to an end, will I lose my love, my lust, my passion, my desire for the English language, and all of her beautiful children that we call words? Or will I remember her as time well spent, as I prepare for my final rest, my eyes growing heavy one last time?

Writing is a thing of beauty, and I believe that all who partake in such a thing are the most beautiful people to populate the Earth. Who else but writers could give us the stories that our mothers use to comfort us as we curl up at their bosom, mewling like we’re still newborns being thrust into the strange new world of human life? Who else but writers could give young children the companions they need at night to make the darkness seem less intimidating? Who but writers could give teenagers that glimpse of hope, that revelation that they are not alone, that sometimes even a fictional character can experience the pain they are? Who but a writer could take their own pain, their own blood and tears, and use that natural ink to motivate their pen into telling the story they were destined to tell?