WRITING DIARIES.
When writing becomes a tool of survival — because killing yourself isn’t ethical.
The hands of time on this clock, click and clack. Slowly, they drive me crazy, in a monotonously therapeutic manner. A meditation of some sort, with my mind focused on the subject of time. The sound of it rather. So consistent in its commitment to being a menotrome, loud yet so elusive and seemingly ordinary.
Anyway. It’s dark academia music now, clock in the background and some wine. Let’s see if we can focus.
I started writing during my mid-teens. Throwing around words I’d learnt from the newspaper, if I’m being honest. I wrote out of the boredom and loneliness of an only child.
Post adolescence (early 20s) the writing gods began asking more of me. It turned into an obsession. Oh! The passion. The tragedy. The boredom. The loneliness. An identity started forming out of this writing habit.
They started calling me a writer. To be fair, I’d been a walking canvas of loosely strewn words that were hanging by a thread. So I didn’t correct them, when they called me a writer, I just let them.
How do you tell someone that — writing is a way of survival because killing yourself would be unethical. Exactly! It’s too much information and pretty awkward of an admission. So you lie, claim the title and keep it moving.
Hi, my name is mara-uma and I’m a writer. My trauma, (clears throat, excuse me) my writing is centered on relational experiences, which is code for, but not limited to; sexuality, relationships and self improvement. If anything, I’m a poet at heart and essayist by exposure + curiosity.
I prefer being in the company of poems, but when those become too intense, I escape into longer form of poetry (essays) and just hide there instead. Here, on medium, that is.
When other people compliment me on how well I write, it makes my day. Not for the reasons you’d think though. I love knowing that, I can translate my thoughts about things in a manner or form that captivates another person’s interest. I’m an attention seeker in that way, always been.
Sometimes it takes me weeks, months or even years to write something. Things have a way of staying with me and I let them. A welcoming individual really. Eventually, the things overstay and I have to kick them out. That’s how we get to some pieces.
Other times, the words sort of spill out of me like an overflowing riverbank. They don’t wait for me to be in a writing mood. It usually happens randomly, when I’m busy with something like washing the dishes or ironing or cleaning or any sort of movement really.
Those times, I have to immediately stop whatever I’m doing and attend to the words. Oh the words. The respect and power they demand from me is immense and unmatched.
Most times, I start mentally writing mid-conversation because human nature fascinates me quite a lot. Some of my friends jokingly tell me all the time that they don’t tell me certain things because I might write about them(which is true lol).
Basically, I’m writing all the time.
Rare times — I feel as though, I’m not the one actually writing. It appears that on rare occasions I turn into a conduit through which words are being conveyed. I sit there with my notebook, listen and just flow.
Those times make me feel like an extension of the source, so divine and holy. That’s what writing does for me, it turns me into a god, so of course when people call me a writer, I let them.
There’s also times when writing is simply a punishment. Times when I go through the most tragic of experiences known to man. Those times are amusing because my brain automatically rejoices that we have a muse.
What happens to a person whose muse is tragedy?
Being a writer means I love and receive love differently. Not in any shape of superiority by the way, just…it’s different. Almost archaic and arbitrary. Every person whose life my love stains, becomes immortalized by words and memory. Some people think it’s charming, I know that it isn’t, it’s a form of punishment to be loved by a writer because you can’t live a quiet life ever again.
There are also times when my demons summon me and demand that we have a meeting about my recent behaviors (usually when I’m trying to be healthy). The times when I’m so happy but write the most depressive gut-wrenching things one can ever read.
Writing isn’t simply a process of stringing words together and calling it a day. It’s become to me, a holy ritual. A spiritual undertaking of some sort.
A place in which I’m compelled to remember and predict things from a past life and future place respectively. Other times, it almost feels as though, my brain is posing as a computer and my writing as the downloaded files.
Writing to me, is all the things, there are to be. It is a technical, spiritual, sexual, physiological and anthropological manifestation of existence. A creation — an original birth filled with beauty, pain and joy.
During unfortunate circumstances, that writing can sometimes turn into a disastrous phenomenon. Times when information is miscarried, processed recklessly and resultantly gives birth to…dead things. Stagnant writing — when language refuses to be translated into anything meaningful.
So yes…when they call me a writer, I claim it because how do you tell people that; “No, this being a writer is not a noun/verb to me. This is my life or lack thereof and this is how I stay alive. How does one say that, without sounding insane?”
Writing is my first love. No, that’s a lie. Music is my first love. Writing — is that obsession driven lover one has in every lifetime. The one that simply won’t leave you alone and borders on stalkerish behavior. You know? That person whose memory of existence you attempt to wipe and dismally fail. Yes, that person.
A love letter dedicated to writing:
You devastate the sobriety
Of my soul into relapse
Your eyes intoxicate me
Into drunken sin
As a gift
I pass-over this body
Onto an altar
Of submission and violence
For your consumption
As holy communion.
— yours.
You read this far? I truly appreciate you and that you shared some of your time with me. If you’d like to contribute to my writing:
email me at marauma53@gmail.com to collaborate.
Or
Buy me a coffee here:
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/marauma53c
