Self-Portrait of a writer

She sits at the edge of nowhere, bordering on the land of everything. Words flow through her consciousness and subconscious, giving her an endless river of material to draw upon. 
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She feels so heavy. Ages of tradition and emotions pulling her to knees. The great stories simultaneously haunt and inspire her with their call. The gravitas and heart of her stories answer back in the darkness, attempting to build a bridge that connects them with their ancestors. They make her wonder if she will ever live up to their expectations. Will her stories ever send that call to another wandering soul? 

Yet she also feels light enough to fly. Golden warmth surrounds her because she knows she has a precious gift, given to many, but used by so few. She knows that the flight can bring the world together, and bind its shattered pieces. After all, is not that what stories are supposed to do? Never will the world be whole while humans rule, but perhaps it could be less broken. There is a legacy to inherit from the tales of the past. There is a legacy to create through her own tales. What power in a single phrase. What power in a story.

What terrible power words hold. They start wars and tear countries apart. Words are never simply words. Imagined stories are never simply fictitious. They become real. They step into the world by seizing the minds and thought processes of those who listen. Words have always held this power, for better or worse.

The girl sits atop all the stories, gathering the brave, good-hearted books to her side. But she keeps in mind the horrible influence an evil word can have. She takes it as a warning, as a caution to her power. 

Her mind turns back to listening in the darkness. Despite the stories’ many voices, this land is silent. She could easily hear the drop of the pen, and indeed many times does. There are other storytellers and history-keepers wandering through the darkness. Every time she hears that sound, she knows it’s one who has given up. One who has decided their story is not worth telling. Sometimes the surrender to worldly pressure is temporary, and a long time later, she will hear them searching around until they find their pen again. But many times, too often, the change is permanent.

​All the lost stories cry into the void, never to be heard, but existing defiantly nonetheless. She has dropped the pen once or twice herself. Sometimes the weight is too much to bear and she leaves to find relief, but the girl always returns. The stories run through her blood, brewing in her veins and filling her mind with characters and plots. The writer always sees a different world than others. She knows of perilous journeys and hard-won victories. She watches them play out before her, draped like a transparent veil over the ordinary world. Everything is part of her story. Whenever she flees, the tales sing to her anyway, reminding her of their love. So she always returns to sit atop the ancient stories of the past and form new stories in the air around her.

It is agony to tell the story and sometimes it breaks her heart. She forges friendships with deeply broken people. Explores their minds. Lets them know they are loved, no matter how broken. She experiences every emotion they go through and knows every obstacle they will encounter. Their pain is her own, poured out onto the paper. The girl is not only a girl. The heroes live in her soul. Each character is a part of her. They challenge what she thinks and bring her to a place of understanding herself better.
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The stories sing and she hopes they always will.

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