Pen to Paper

Maybe this is our best recourse at times: to put pen to paper. I understand why. The paper doesn’t talk back. It doesn’t offer you advice. It doesn’t judge your feelings. The paper absorbs everything you give it. The paper is a sponge for your emotions. The paper allows your thoughts to seep into it, not contaminating, or tainting, but rather using them to form a new paper, one with more weight, depth, and character.

Maybe this is our best recourse at times. People can’t always understand exactly what we are going through. They don’t have to, they aren’t supposed to. They do the best they can to be there for us. Sometimes they fall short. Paper does not. It holds our thoughts and words. It makes space for our tiny emotions and our gigantic ones. It re-tells our story. It immortalizes our story.

Maybe this is our best recourse at times. On paper, we can expose our deepest fears and longings. I can say anything, do anything, feel anything, and think anything on paper. It’s the purest freedom—on paper. Anything and everything goes—on paper. There are no filters, or screenings, or edits. It is bona fide truth, unhinged, untouched, and raw.

Maybe this is our best recourse at times. On paper, we aren’t afraid of the truth. The truth doesn’t haunt us—on paper. On paper, the truth stands bright and clear. It isn’t wrong or right. It’s any color we want to be. It isn’t overwhelming or terrifying, nor is it fantastic or beautiful. It is anything we want it to be—on paper.

Maybe this is our only recourse at times. For Anne Frank, it was. For Sylvia Plath, it was. For Virginia Woolf, it was.

I understand why. It’s an untouched love—pen to paper. It can’t be ruined, corrupted, destroyed, or lost.

It’s a magnificent love.