I had forgotten how closely intertwined writing and love are.
Not just because of my love, because oh, God knows it’s what keeps me hoping. As soon as I learned to type, it felt like the world had split itself open to show me the universes that I could but brush with light fingertips. I could take pieces of myself, my light, my soul, and will these worlds to whisper their existences into life.
For the longest time writing was my anchor in this inscrutable world. I was lost, stumbling along crossroads with danger signs I could not read. But the words I knew, the words that were mine, built themselves into a lighthouse in the distance that I could recognize if I squinted hard enough. One day my ship would reach shore, and I could carefully retrieve my still-beating heart from the treasure chest below deck to deliver it where vultures would not venture.
Because somewhere along the way, growing up, I think I tried to lock my heart away. A heart that wouldn’t be chosen, a heart that was beautiful and pure but not beautiful and pure in the way that boys would sneak glances at you in the dining hall. A heart that was smart and unique and beat with the vigor of a girl who saw too much, who felt too much and weighed down her ribcage with responsibilities that should never have been hers. A heart that was battered from the ceaseless worries that if she didn’t check the bathroom vents enough times, her family would suffer an agonizing tragedy. That if she didn’t wash her hands until they were raw and broken, she would be the cause of all hellfire to those who cherished her most despite the imaginary blood on her delicate hands.
Lock your heart away, I think I wrote. I said to those words, those words that I could recognize and breathe and love, that they would need to wait until I was whole again. Until I was ready to write in a way that wouldn’t accidentally breathe my worst nightmares to life.
Because what was I if not a vessel for burden? What was I if not burden itself? Unlovable unless useful, untouchable unless I was perfect, sealing away the ugly hounds that no one needed to see. Because my heart was strong, I was strong, and perhaps I was born into this world to be the endless void that carries the burdens of the shadows that people cast.
Sunshine. A kindergarten teacher once called me. Ah, how I took this seriously. To be the sun is to scare away the shadows. To be the sun means that you cannot afford to be afraid of what lies in the dark. And if you are frightened, then you mustn’t show it, because it makes you weak, weak, weak, and you must then eat your own heart.
So the worst thing my foolish soul could have done was fall in another kind of love. Young love, naive love, stupid love. I had fallen in love with something other than writing, someone who made that silly heart beat with the hope that in the incessant chatter of darkness, someone else could be the sun I was so tired of burning in. Someone who made me wonder, wonder dangerously and open myself to the sharp sting of an unseen blade.
Because wasn’t that the dream? For someone to see past the blinding light that exists as a shield for the heart of the sun, to reach past the flames that burn and char and scar, to find the child still curled up, asking the question why? Why won’t anyone see me?
Perhaps I had to forfeit writing. Maybe it was my stubborn tie to writing, to feeling and thinking and dreaming too much, that my heart had somehow convinced itself that it could be something else. Something more. Something that could be loved without being asked for anything in return.
If my life was words, the words that had built themselves into that lighthouse, maybe I needed to tear down the old building and vanquish that light. For what good is a heart that inevitably will break? What good is a vessel who can no longer hold its burdens, the burdens of others, and the burdens of love?
What good is a writer who can no longer write, because she has forgotten who she is?
But is that not the crux of it all? Ah, God, I had forgotten. I had forgotten how closely intertwined love and writing are. How a heart must break for someone to write.
My heart did break, and might break many more times. A few years ago I could not recognize my own voice as I wept into the shoulder of my mother, and I wondered, whose cry is echoing through the empty chambers of this lifeless disaster? Who screams so, unafraid of the monsters the sound might attract?
Was it me? Was I a person who could be allowed to bleed so openly?
I heard myself then, and it occurred to me that we writers hold a responsibility. A responsibility to feel the sorrow in this world, to catch the stars in a bottle and listen to them weep. And we in turn must weep with them, because how else do our words know what to tell the world? We live the tragedy of the constellations, and in turn our stories are spoken through the shooting stars that wink out of existence.
Are we writers not the messengers of the heart? A heart that doesn’t break cannot shoulder the brightness of the sun. Nor can it perceive the gentle, silent glow of the moon. And if it is my responsibility to hurt, to break, to contain, to feel, and to dream, then I cannot be afraid of the flames that threaten to burn me away. Only when I am burned, can I write about the beauty of the color orange.
Yes, I had forgotten that writing is married to love. And my lighthouse still stands, waiting for me to get closer, to cut through the relentless night and find that, despite my fear of the monsters that dwell in the inky waters, I am a sailor who can read the stars, and my heart will see the shore, scars and all.