Writing is a form of therapy for me, just like visual art. Sometimes, it can be uncomfortable but necessary. I write how I feel. I write about my life and my struggles, my triumphs and downfalls. The wall between me and the reader is a thin veil. I let the fabric flutter and twist, revealing more of the face beneath than I often intend.
For any writer, it can hurt to let go of your words, especially when you know letting go means they are in the world, forever out of your hands, melding into the ether and becoming part of someone else. Stories are a liminal space; anyone can step into them and stay for a while.
Some days, it weighs heavy on my heart to have others staying in my stories, thoughts, and experiences. Being the one to open the door is to become subject to constant coming and going without your knowledge. The readers often stride past me, pouring into the hallways between the lines, opening guestrooms, rummaging through my file cabinets, and rearranging all the decor.
It can be painful to say something out loud, no matter how much you shroud it in fiction or layer a softness over the thorns. Fiction is rooted in the truth that we have excised from our souls and written in our blood, pouring it into the ink when the pen begins to run dry. While the reader stays in the comfortable shelter of your stories, you go out to drag the lake for unfinished business. Heaving another line out of that abyss is hard and tiresome, but you keep returning because you know a wanderer is out there, searching for refuge in the words you have yet to pull from the water. Forever Persephone, stepping in and out of the darkness.
To all the writers I know who feel the same: this crimson tableaux is dedicated to you.