I
would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an
echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell,
to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in
us all. ~ Richard Wright
What is it about words ... it's so hard to explain sometimes, which seems like an oxymoron somehow. But the love affair began when I was a kid in elementary school, learning to write. I loved the feeling of my lead pencil pressed against the wide ruled, grainy paper. I loved how letters looked on a page and eventually, how a bunch of symbols had the power to tell an entire story.
As I grew older, I realized I not only liked writing, I loved being a vessel for something bigger than myself, something that had the potential to touch someone else, move them, ignite thought, feeling, inspiration. I would sit in my bedroom at night and just write ... short stories, poetry, lyrics. When I was in class, usually in the back corner, and my mind would wander, I'd often be penciling in a passage, a quote or poem.
Some of my friends joke with me about how I always use "big words" ... or ones less commonly used. How sometimes it's hard to follow me. To be honest, I've felt "misunderstood" or like the strange, kinda out there girl for most of my life. But there's something beautiful about breathing life into dusty words, like surreptitious, undulate, emanate, sinuous, enrapture ... just typing them now makes me a dozen emotions at once, shivering through me.
But just like in life and love, it's a delicate balance and lithe dance between complexities and simplicities ... between the big words and the beautifully simple ones.
Little did I realize, these moments of inspiration as a child and teen were akin to brief moments of enlightenment, of being completely, 100 percent present. I'd be so captured by a moment or experience, a feeling, I would feel every single layer of it, taste every possible flavor, inhale all of its scents and then absolutely have to write it down — like a painter who mixes the perfect colors together and then hungers for a blank canvas.
And now, while on this current path — which is quite different than the one I was during the last few years — I'm realizing all of those past moments, experiences, the feelings I had as a child, teenager, adult, the feelings I have now, they're all coming together in some beautiful symphony. It's kind of like meeting different parts of yourself, of your soul over the years — as though reading one chapter at a time, allowing each character, each plot to develop, deepen — and eventually coming face to face with yourself in your entirety.
I'm still discovering more. I'm pretty sure I always will be. And truth be told, part of me still struggles with letting go of old patterns of thinking, identifying with my mind, feeling, obsessing, fixating, yearning, wanting, needing, negative self talking, etc.
In the past, writing served as a channel, as a way to connect, as a way to bare my heart and soul. It still serves those purposes, but, where I once fed off my depression, inner turmoil, heartbreak, angst or desires, I now feed off of inspiration, movement, change, growth and harmony. Friction still happens and I know I can always put ink to paper when it does, but as I'm changing and growing, so are these aspects of myself — these gifts.
It's kind of like, the romantic in me still lives and breathes, but she's a different kind of romantic now. She's no longer as scared of losing herself in someone else. She's trusting in what she feels now, her hopelessness, is no longer.
What is it about words ... it's so hard to explain sometimes, which seems like an oxymoron somehow. But the love affair began when I was a kid in elementary school, learning to write. I loved the feeling of my lead pencil pressed against the wide ruled, grainy paper. I loved how letters looked on a page and eventually, how a bunch of symbols had the power to tell an entire story.
As I grew older, I realized I not only liked writing, I loved being a vessel for something bigger than myself, something that had the potential to touch someone else, move them, ignite thought, feeling, inspiration. I would sit in my bedroom at night and just write ... short stories, poetry, lyrics. When I was in class, usually in the back corner, and my mind would wander, I'd often be penciling in a passage, a quote or poem.
Some of my friends joke with me about how I always use "big words" ... or ones less commonly used. How sometimes it's hard to follow me. To be honest, I've felt "misunderstood" or like the strange, kinda out there girl for most of my life. But there's something beautiful about breathing life into dusty words, like surreptitious, undulate, emanate, sinuous, enrapture ... just typing them now makes me a dozen emotions at once, shivering through me.
But just like in life and love, it's a delicate balance and lithe dance between complexities and simplicities ... between the big words and the beautifully simple ones.
Little did I realize, these moments of inspiration as a child and teen were akin to brief moments of enlightenment, of being completely, 100 percent present. I'd be so captured by a moment or experience, a feeling, I would feel every single layer of it, taste every possible flavor, inhale all of its scents and then absolutely have to write it down — like a painter who mixes the perfect colors together and then hungers for a blank canvas.
And now, while on this current path — which is quite different than the one I was during the last few years — I'm realizing all of those past moments, experiences, the feelings I had as a child, teenager, adult, the feelings I have now, they're all coming together in some beautiful symphony. It's kind of like meeting different parts of yourself, of your soul over the years — as though reading one chapter at a time, allowing each character, each plot to develop, deepen — and eventually coming face to face with yourself in your entirety.
I'm still discovering more. I'm pretty sure I always will be. And truth be told, part of me still struggles with letting go of old patterns of thinking, identifying with my mind, feeling, obsessing, fixating, yearning, wanting, needing, negative self talking, etc.
In the past, writing served as a channel, as a way to connect, as a way to bare my heart and soul. It still serves those purposes, but, where I once fed off my depression, inner turmoil, heartbreak, angst or desires, I now feed off of inspiration, movement, change, growth and harmony. Friction still happens and I know I can always put ink to paper when it does, but as I'm changing and growing, so are these aspects of myself — these gifts.
It's kind of like, the romantic in me still lives and breathes, but she's a different kind of romantic now. She's no longer as scared of losing herself in someone else. She's trusting in what she feels now, her hopelessness, is no longer.
Love
Eyes, exquisitely perilous windows
How delicately you pull each thread, unraveling your prey
Guarded, inviting, vulnerable sanctuaries
Possessing the key to folly locks barring truth
Skin, intricately woven, veiling armor
How softly you betray history, bury secrets, exude essence
Scarred, feathery, responsive sheathing
Procuring the power to bruises and healing
Mouth, potently voluble hearth
How fervently you kindle flames, tasting life, drinking tears
Salty, saccharine, silken estuary
Harboring the chamber to breathing the soul
~C~
