Have you ever been scared to return to the page? Because right now, sitting here, I’m terrified. I’m wearing your perfume. Like a shield. Like a guard against the war in my mind. I’m playing your song. Like it will ease the pain. …

I wonder if you’re listening. I wonder if you’re there. Because I wonder if you know. And I’m not sure if you do. I wonder if you know you’ve brought me here. Sitting wide-eyed, in front of the page. Feeling the words course through my veins like you’ve seen through…

I often think about the spring. The way the light breaks and the blossom falls and the sky bleeds in rich pink and blue. The way the sun’s rays crack over the tops of the trees and the haze burns out into the stars. I often think about the spring…

An amazing writer taught me the power of just sitting with stuff. And right now, we’re sitting with everything. We’re sitting with fear, and grief, and panic. With uncertainty, and confusion, and a lack of control. We’re sitting with overwhelm, and exhaustion, and stress. We’re sitting with solitude, and suffocation…

A pause is a curious thing — Robert Poynton Through the soft, smoky gauze of the sunset, I look up at the sky. I look up at the sky and I wait. I wait for the dusk. I wait for the dark. …

Meet me back at the beginning. Back when the ink flowed and the words fell. Back when my fingers twitched and the keys pulsed, and the wet charcoal pads pressed deep into the page to pull tangled, awkward chords softly out of my heart. Meet me back at the imperfect…

I used to wait for the waves. I’d watch the ripples of the ocean flicker in the dark as the crests of the water broke out of the night. I’d blink as bright, milky-white shards burst onto my retina, shattering my vision as lightning cracked open the sky. A would…

I don’t remember when I first heard the silence. I just remember being alone. I remember the pulse of the radiators, the creak of the floorboards; the footsteps approaching — faster, louder, closer — then disappearing into the night. I remember being terrified. I remember my heart pounding. I remember…

There’s something to be said for sitting with stuff. Just sitting with it and writing nothing. Not because you can’t. Because you don’t need to. Because, right now, you just need to sit. To sit with the agony and anguish and fear that comes with baring every last bit of…