To the Writers Who Make Me Cry.
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What are you thinking when you use words like cement and sentences like bricks to build a road that takes me to a new thought, a new feeling, a new world that I didn’t think could exist?
What are you thinking when your hands and mind craft something that pierces me, that I want to hold in my hand forever and to destroy at the same time?
I wonder what goes through your head.
Do you write to remember — or forget?
Do you write to heal — or hurt?
Do you write to teach — or learn?
Do you write to inspire — or destroy?
Do you write for you — or me?
Because you make me cry. Every damn time.
But you must have cried too.
I know those words have that effect on me only because they have had that effect on you.
I know what you write.
You write what moves you — and that is why it moves me.
You write what keeps you awake at night, tossing and turning, when you are desperate for a moment of reprieve. You write about those parts of yourself that you are downright terrified of thinking about because that will mean acknowledging that they exist, that they are there, and that they are real. You write about those truths that amaze you, those thoughts that embarrass you, those feelings that you didn’t know you were capable of feeling.
You write about what devastates your mind, what makes your insides stir and boil with anger. You write about that day when your world ended and you felt so alone — so so alone. You write about that tear of happiness that you want to catch because you might never see it again.
And I know that to write all this, you must face yourself — and that is scary. You must face your fears, your nightmares and all the things that make you who you are.
Ernest Hemingway once said, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
Yes, it is true.
Yet there is much more to bleeding.
Bleeding is pain, and every word is a shiny blade. But the shiny blades absorb the red color as it seeps out. And when the shiny blades begin to create something that resemble healing scars — healing but there, always there — that is when I see the bravery and courage that was behind all of this. Because in order to bleed, you must feel. You must open your wounds so that they can heal.
And if it hurts to read, it must have hurt to write.
And I thank you for that.
Because when I read your words, I feel some of what you felt. Tell me, did the pain flow through your veins as your fingers created them?
Did it poison you — or nourish you?
Did it grey your soul — or color it?
Did it surge with every breath — or did it calm you?
Did it consume you — or set you free?
Did it create something beautiful — or something terrible?
Or is it the same thing?
The words — your words — made me cry, yes. But that is a small price to pay for what I got in return.
Your words gave me the strength to search, to not settle, to question — and to live.
One day, when I pick up a pen to write, I will find my own answers. I will create my own silver blades and bleed and heal.
Thank you for giving me your words, for they allow to me create my own.
Thank you for giving me a safe place between your pages to cry.
Thank you, because I know you must have cried too.
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Tuba Sajjad is a writer who loves to explore the world, and is trying to come to terms with the futility of existence. You can contact her on Twitter or Facebook.
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