Stop Lurking. Start Writing.
Pretty much every day of the last forsaken year I’ve woken up thinking “I want to write today.”
This isn’t a new thing. That little voice started whispering in my ear around age 10, when a teacher forced me to write down my thoughts and then told me they were good.
I respond well to “attaboys” and pats on the head.
It followed me through my teens, applauding me for furiously written journals, angsty margin poetry, assignments to produce essays and stories, each good grade more fuel on the “I’m gonna be a writer!” fire.
And it was there that one morning when I was sixteen, when I printed out a poem I was proud of to deliver to an old teacher.
She never got to read it.
Someone else intercepted those words before they could get to her, words that were never meant for him to read. He shamed me for them, dragged me out of the school by my arm, furious that I would write about subjects that were hard or dark (or made him uncomfortable.)
I tried to shake that day off, to pretend it didn’t matter, but his voice took root next to mine… and, eventually, overtook it completely.
