the fine balance of enough

Writing became the only way I could balance myself, otherwise everything was chaos, indiscernible, unreliable, and flimsy. The pen was an anchor, the point on which everything came together and I had control over what came out.

I filled folders with loose writings, floppy disks, notebooks, napkins, chewing gum wrappers, my arms, legs and shoes became paper. Windows, mirrors, walls. Nothing was left virgin. Eventually I couldn't stop writing, I’d fall asleep with a mountain of words at my feet and wake up with volumes I couldn't remember. I became an awkward walking alphabet.

I nursed them into adulthood, polished them as if they were gems, relied on their permanence, leaned on them when I became tired. Not a single word abandoned or abused. Words were not bones or skin or decoration. Words were the makeup, the fibers that made up the  very first cell that I grew from. Words created me and words could kill me. Devour me, slay my hopes, and turn their backs on me. Words could hurt me.

Then slowly life began to happen.

When I was a junkie my eyes would accidentally cross paths with the notebooks on my shelf and I would fall into uncontrollable sobbing, the kind that leave stains. Wailing that only heroin would cure. I had finally found something to kill words with. The syringe was the antithesis of the pen. What came out of the pen was negated with what came out of the needle. One by one I killed them all.

Then there was silence.