It’s a quiet wish-
a soft whisper in my heart that grows louder and more persistent

in the gentle blanket of midnight, when the only sound is my breath
and the quiet swish of a fan cutting through the air
It’s the rustle of paper, the pain that is written across my heart,
red and bloody and alive in my chest
a feeling I can’t quite describe
not in a way that you’d understand.
It’s another voice in my head- one that cuts through the grey fog of the real world
and brings to life these characters that I refuse to surrender to reality
They are mine and I am theirs- an interwoven messy knot of the journey
steeped in carefully plucked words, a masterpiece twisted together by the delicate fingers of an
author, whose hushed voice still echoes around my skull in the darkness.

I can still remember the moment it clicked-
My heart drawn to the battered golden cover, every crease and rip a loving caress

and I wondered how this book, this bound pile of paper and ink, could elicit such a reaction.
I remember that first sentence-

“My father was a king and the son of kings”

and it hit me
a bullet ripping through the tender flesh of my soul
flaying me to the bone and baring a seedling of an idea to the light
This story is now a part of me, tattooed on my skin for the world to see

A scar marring my chest that I proudly wear
proof.
that I am more than myself- I am a tapestry of tales, a collection of characters,
a living breathing beating representation of these phrases I clutch so close.
Faceless figures ask relentlessly- what do you want to do? Who do you want to be.
It’s daunting- these six little words, the elephant in the room as we age.
That quiet wish balloons inside me, the syllables trapped behind my clumsy tongue
How can I explain
I am ravenous, starving yet so full of words that I fear I might burst
if I ever opened my mouth, and let them all spill loose in the wind.

I want to be full-
to purge the stories that wrap around my mind, to write paragraphs and chapters and novels

that one day are as inspiring as The Song that I still can’t get out of my head.
I want to be strong enough to look myself in the mirror and force the words past the bars of my

teeth-
I’d love to be an author.

To write fiction that is so real it leaps off the page and to summon quotes so beautiful that
they haunt you in the quiet.
For now, this sentence lives in my heart, content to sit and wait,

but it won’t fade away. This is my truth-
I want my own words to join the many inked into my skin

my own characters to fill the cacophony in my head.
I want I want I want

But is it enough?