Write. Find the words in your spine. Find the words in your
fingers. Find the words which are not words which are sounds. Find the bathtub words, the swing set words, the words for grassy lawn laying. Find the words for break ups, broken hearts, getting on your knees and praying. Find the words for hope, laughter, running down sidewalks. Find the words that are choked up in the back of your throat, breathless. Find the words that ache in your gut. Find the words scrawled on the back of your hand so you won’t forget.
Write. Find the words you wrote in a letter to your first girlfriend after she broke your heart, the words for the way you went back to your math class and lay your head flat on the desk, crying. Find the words for no, for not now, for not ever. Find the words for get off me, for I’ll fucking kill you, find the words for never fucking touch me like that again. Find the words for I’m sorry, I miss you so much, I did the best I could. Find the words for long lost fantasies, what you thought would be, what never was.
Write. Write till your hands hurt, till your mouth is dry. Write past the running out of words. Write past the pointlessness and the not knowing what to say. Write until you remember. Write until it makes sense. Write until it doesn’t make sense anymore. Write until you forget.
Write about being nineteen and getting drunk on martinis and
pretending to be grown up. Write about the words your ex-best friend said to you. How she said you were a writer and you told her no. You haven’t been writing much anymore.
You haven’t been writing because there is nothing to say. Ever since he stripped you naked and shoved dry fingers inside you. There are no words for it. You couldn’t write about the pain or the shock or the way you laughed and danced around his room naked. The way you let him become your boyfriend. The way you decided that you must have liked it. You were fifteen. He was eighteen. He was your friend and he was supposed to be a good one. Write about how you never called it rape. You couldn’t find the words for it.
Write about the things you would write in the margins of your diary. “Back thoughts” you called them. The things that didn’t fit into the narrative, that didn’t quite make sense. Write about the fear you know deep down. The terror there isn’t words for.
Write like razor blades and beer bottles and smashed glass and blood. Write like one night stands and lost condoms and puke. Write like weed smoke and black eyes and I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry. Write like you’re so fucked up when you drink no one wants to be around you. Write like suicide attempts and liquid charcoal and getting formed. Write like I want to live I just don’t know how.
Write to know how. Write a love letter to the future. Write away the impossible pain. Write the hope which blisters and burns. Write tomorrow. Write today.
Write the letter that you wanted to receive, the words you needed to hear. Write that love unconditional. Write that witnessing. Write that it wasn’t your fault and it never should have happened. Write that it’s okay, you fucked up, you can try again.
Write the honest truth, the messy overflow, the silence. Write what wasn’t said. Write what you remember. Write the gaping holes where
memory should be. Write I’m sorry. Write I’m not sorry. Write I did the best I could with what I had and now I’m trying to do better.
Write it out. Write it down. Write a new world into being. Write a place for the pain. Write a second chance. Write possibility into
action. Write the night skies reflecting starlight on black water.
Write the words: I’m still alive.