Don’t Fall for a Writer

I meant to tell you. I wanted to warn you. Because I thought you ought to know. I am already in love and have been for a long time. The truth is my heart will forever belong to writing. No matter who you become to me, you will always be held within those words. You will never be apart from them; you will be encircled by them. Writing will infiltrate every part of us. It might build us up and it might tear us down, but it will always be present.

So, don’t fall for a writer if you don’t want her to distill your love into letters and spaces.

Your ray of light will always be sifted through the mirrors of my kaleidoscope. It is through this broken rainbow that I will experience the blossoming of our love. But the words on the page will never be the prism of colors that you see. Because the hues are first felt by my body, they shade my emotions and then tint my mind. Suddenly, like magic, they come to life in black ink on white paper.

So, don’t fall for a writer if you are not ready to let her turn your love into an ekphrasis.

Parts of me are on display for all to read. I am contorted into paragraphs for anyone to see. A freakshow of words that draw in inquisitive stares. You must know that not all those who have front-row seats are fans. Not all who read what I write will be gentle. But they will be able to see me bare and to critique my every crevice. It is the price I pay to create art that stirs up from deep within me, art that exposes me.

So don’t fall for a writer if you don’t want them to gawk at her.

You cannot become possessive of my words because they cannot be possessed. They do not belong to you. And as much as I coddle them, they are not mine to hold either. They belong to something other. Something that moves through me and that is captured in short creative nonfiction. I am nothing if not folded into a million tiny, untethered parts. Smithereens that belong only to those who recognize their humanity in them.

So, don’t fall for a writer if you are the jealous type or she will make you green with envy.

You are no longer your own when I write you. You will forever be displayed through my mind’s eye. As such your shape will never feel just to you. It won’t be likened to your own sense of yourself. In my prose, you can’t be whole. You must accept that my words are just pieces of your truth. It is in their choice that I create my perspective. From that vantage point, you will be unable to see your reflection clearly because you will be looking through my lens.

So, don’t fall for a writer if you don’t want her to let them see through you.

You must also accept that parts of me are broken and that they can only be mended by phrases intuitively drawn on a blank page. Amalgamating syllables is how I sleep soundly. I wax lyrical because it is the only way I know how to fix myself. I need to breathe my life into art if I want to survive. If you told me to stop I would suffocate. To love me is to love all the stories that live inside of me, from the base to the illustrious.

So, don’t fall for a writer if you don’t want to witness the darkness that engulfs her.

I asked you if you would have a problem with me writing about us. You said no, as long as if I had something to say to you I would come to you first. I acquiesced. This seemed like a reasonable request. But as I write these words I realize how implausible that concession was. These phrases flowed out of me without warning. The words inexplicably divulged by a blinking cursor on a screen. Blink. Blink. Blink.

So, don’t fall for a writer if you don’t want to be surprised by her words.