This Is Why I Write

You know the girls whose biggest struggle is finding the perfect shoes to match their little black dresses? And they sit miserably at their dead-end job, drumming their manicured fingernails against the desk, praying for the weekend to arrive so they can spend their money on tequila shots and a cab ride to the house of whichever fuckboy replies to their texts? Well if I’m being honest, sometimes I wish I was one of them. Some days, I even envy the life of those girls in glossy magazines whose entire lives revolve around the bag or the shoes or the boy.

This happens on the days when I’m stuck staring at a blank screen trying to convey my feelings and spinning thoughts into beautiful, lyrical words. Some days my desire to be a writer is both a blessing and a curse. I seek the often unattainable. I want my name printed on books which line store shelves and I want my words to be imprinted inside people’s minds to remind them that even in their darkest moments, they are not alone.

I want every thought, every fear and every love I’ve ever had to pour from my fingertips like ink-stained blood so I never forget how I got here. The screen is my canvas and my mind is the paint and I demand my art to be seen.

I chase characters through sunlit fields and unknown cities scattered with snow and they talk to me. And each other. And they won’t leave me until I write. I know I sound a little mental, perhaps I am, but on the days when I manage to make sense of my broken heart or why I’m so afraid of the future that it keeps me up at night, I’m grateful for the stars scattered around the darkness inside my mind and the comets which send light blazing through. I’m grateful that even when I’m hurting, I find magic in these moments.

Yes, it’d be easier to follow a less difficult, more certain path. Yes, my days would not be spent trying to juggle my job and my dreams but it would be empty somehow. Writing has saved me. Writing gives me courage. Writing is there when the boy isn’t. When my friends fail to be friends. When loss is so overwhelming I cannot think of anything to do but simply put a pen to paper. And write.