Words

Words. I seek them out like a deer seeking nourishment through the cold winter. Every step leading me through the vast white wilderness, not knowing where or if I will find the victuals that will carry me onward. As they escape me, I struggle on, hopeful and desperate. Weak and soul weary, I can not go back, yet I fear I can not go forward. Fear and panic lead me to despair. Hope and the promise of life lead me down the next path. Blindly I search.

The page before me is as blank as the deepest snow, no familiar landmark nor trail to guide me. Yet it is in this vast empty wild I find the solace for which my soul yearns. Even in its vacant form, it yields the promise of things to come. For without the unfilled page, there is no canvas which to lay bare my soul, no field for the seeds within my mind to bear flower.

Then, as I despair most, they come unbidden and whole from within me.

Words, the paint that colors man's tapestry from centuries past. The whole of humanity's experience that give meaning to life and love and desire and pain flow from me.

Then comes the fear. Fear of acceptance, of rejection. Who will read, why will they read . . .will they want to read. Yet does it matter? Though it shouldn't, it does. Fear. It is the killer of dreams, the torturer of dreamers.

Am I a dreamer; are my thoughts the dreams? What vanity makes me believe my words matter; that I matter? Do I? Do they?

Doubt creeps into the darkest corners of my soul. The corners from whence no good comes, where even I fear to peer. It spreads, like a vile disease, devouring hope and dreams.

The words falter, my chi suffers a grievous blow. I am undone.

But am I? A new thought springs anew within.

No, I do not matter; my words and dreams and hopes and desires do not matter.

For they are me whether the world exists or not. My essence flares again as I regain this simple truth. Though I do not matter, nor do my words matter, they are mine nonetheless. And I have no choice but to do what I must to survive. The words must continue to soar forth from me. If they do not, I die. For it is who I am. I can be nothing less than who and what I am.

I am a writer. I have always been a writer. I must always be a writer. For a writer writes because he must, and for no other reason.

And so the words continue, free from the doubt, free from the vanity, pure and complete.

I am at peace.