I recently wrote this for the prompt of “Explore your impulse to write”. I hope you enjoy!
I write to be seen. My art craves an audience, craves understanding, and visceral, true reactions. I want others, friends, you, to see my work and think- I know. I get it. Me too.
I write to express my emotions. When it’s too hard to talk to people, when it’s too hard to spill my true feelings, then I write. I turn to the page, to the screen, to the savior and safe space that I can find only in a blank page. The blank page of terror, yes, but the blank page of opportunity, the page of truth. The page of uncertainty, but also the page of making mistakes. Of being allowed to try and learn. The page of looking back and cringing, but also the page of growth.
I write for myself. I write knowing that everything I do will be for my eyes and my eyes only. I write stanzas of poems, words and words of prose to let my emotions flow, to let myself express, to let myself feel finally and truly me.
My words are my outlet, my way of creating worlds and lands where you believe in magic, even if just for a second. A place where you can really see what I’m talking about- whether it be the resplendent jewel-tones of the Garden of Envy circus, or if it’s the flower field where two lovers took their last breath together.
I hope to create words, sentences, stories that evoke emotion. Emotion of any kind- a deep, wrenching pain, maybe, or instead, a hopeful joy that lifts you up.
I’ve always searched for a place to call my own. Something that’s really mine, even as a kid, even as everything I own is not really mine. I’ve always, since when I could first remember, craved that feeling of independentness, of true belonging. And writing lets me do that. Writing won’t judge. Writing gives me a space of love and kindness and acceptance. Is that silly, finding all that in a blank page? Maybe. But I like to think that as I fill up that blank page with my dreams, my hopes, my fears, I lose that “silliness”. I can be me or at least a version of me that can be me without rebuke, without fear of failure- because there’s no failure in writing, just growth.
So, overall, I write for emotion. I write for me. I write for life. I write to feel alive, to feel free, to feel in general. I write to live, to grow, to be a better human. I write to chronicle, to tell the truth, and most of all, I write so I can find my place in a world that seems destined to shut me out. I write so I exist. I write so that I am me.
I hope you enjoyed!