Writers Block

The things I’m afraid to write are the things I want to write the most.

I want to pour out my soul and let strangers read every single word. Even those in brackets. Over and over. I want them to need to start the sentence from scratch a few times because they cannot believe that I feel exactly what they do. I want people to feel my emotions and talk about them over dinner because the things I put down resonated with them.

I don’t write distinctly profound things. If anything, what I write about is spectacularly normal. Almost mundane. Like brushing your teeth in the morning. Familiar.  We are all inundated with special. The need to be unique. Different. So much so, that we forget that there are more things that connect us than separate us. Like brushing our teeth in the morning. Familiar.

I have so  many stories I want to tell. Vividly. I don’t want to skip steps or omit facts. I don’t want to feel dishonest or incomplete in my writing. I want to describe the way the light hit the floor, the scent of the air, the texture of skin, every goose-bump. But here’s the thing… I am not an island. I exist because of and with other people. Their stories are intertwined with mine and every so often, the bits of me I want to share, involve someone else. I don’t mean involve in the sense that I could give them a different name and pretend they would be unrecognisable. I mean involve in the deepest sense. I connect with humans deeply. I don’t like to scratch the surface. Doing that makes me feel disingenuous. It also makes me seem invasive. Forward. Impatient. I’ve heard it all.

I’m learning to temper myself when necessary.

I struggle with passers by because I’m fascinated by the way people work. I want to know their stories. Where they come from. Why they are. When they will arrive. Do they like themselves? Regrets? I in turn, want to overshare. I want to leave a mark. A memory. Even a hazy one. The kind that requires you close your eyes for a second to focus. So you can remember that I speak too fast or laugh too loudly. That I told you too much about myself and the way  I didn’t care. That my accent is sometimes not uniform and that my hands are freckled. That my thoughts are sometimes all over the place. I want you to take a piece of me forward, so I will never be forgotten. But that also means, I don’t want to forget you. Or how you made me feel. That I loved your style and swagger. That your jersey made me wish I could knit. That your first name told a story.

I want to write all of it. But what if you don’t want people to know that you cry at night by yourself because the burdens you bear are too heavy for your back. What if you don’t want them to look too closely at the scars on your wrist, because they’ll know you tried to fly before your time. Perhaps you don’t want your future to know that I know what you look like in the mornings, just before the sun comes up. You most likely have no desire for the outside to see all the ugly you have inside.

These things elicited emotions from me. I was there when you cried. I cried too. I found you on the floor and helped stem the blood. I was affected too. I lay in that moment too, morning breath, head wrap  and all. I showed you my ugly.

I want to talk about myself but can I ever do that without talking about you too?

Do you talk about yourself without mentioning me?

I’m making my concentrating face right now. And reaching for a pen and my notebook. To write in full, things the world may never see. It is catharsis.

The Empress

 

 

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