Palaver

Pain and Pen

I write to give myself strength. I write to be characters that I am not. I write to explore all the things I'm afraid of.    --Joss Whedon

What am I if not a writer? Am I just a mother? A lover? A friend? Where do my words land if no one picks up the book? If no one turns the page? The words found hollow at the tips of my fingers as my digits dance across the keys find solace, strength, and peace on the page. My words leak out of my being as if from my womb. I give life. I breathe people into being and watch them dance across the vastness of bleached tree pulp. I am the creator. As much as I breathe life, I bring death. My pages, though bloody, are clean, crisp, and clear. 

Echoes of yesterday call for tomorrow. 

Dialogue and action tangle in the throes of passion. Mingling on the edge of of narrative begging to be wailed into the minds of readers. Into the ears of an audience. I dwell in places I’ve never seen with my own eyes. My mind knows they exist, just as it knows grass is green and trees grow from the ground. I can feel a lover’s tremble. I cry at a baby’s first steps. I suffer as my brother dies in my hands. 

Plagued by nightmares of struggles I’ve never endured, the pen in my hand is a weapon. Sheilded behind the safety glass that is my imagination. 

Stories run the gammit in my mind. 

I’ve had every argument. I’ve seen all the outcomes. I am your writer. I’ve written your life in verse before you took your first breath. I dried the tears I caused after I beat you to the brink of exhaustion and pulled you back again. I am the cliff you stand on as you contemplate the wind. I am the nurturing kiss and caress of your mothers hand. I am the pillow on which you weep. And I am the lover you failed to keep. 

You are me and I am in you. You are born of me. 

Black on white. I curse the page with every word I type. It changes and transforms until it is no longer what is was. Gone is the pale, blank coldness of white. Now it is riddled with bold lines, swaying paragraphs, and violent grammatical flair. With each deadly stroke, I become magician, musician, creating a magical symphony of words beyond the world you call home. Escape with me into the mind of those you wish to be, lovers you want to crave, children you wish you could protect, adversaries you want to challenge, and villians you want to kill. 

Black on white. Cascades of characters dripping down the page into paragraphs, pages until my palaver has paced.