Felix Felicis

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I have always admired pen and paper.

It allowed me a freedom to express my thoughts in a way I couldn’t with my voice.

Quivering, frightened, small, I could never bark my words with the dripping implication allowed by ink.

I could never order my throat to unclench as it strangled the meaning and convoluted my words.

I was forced to sit in silence, betrayed by my tongue as my thoughts screamed to be released from my mind, clawing at my lips from the inside of my timid mouth.

Ink was my liquid luck, as I could confidently scribble remarks and declarations of hope and joy and happiness without the fear for mistakes and failures as my voice refused to obey my brain, a disconnect that fueled my departure from spoken words and statements.

I write to be heard,

because without my pen and paper, my courage evaporates, erased and discarded, thrown haphazardly away as I then utter and dismember each syllable and pronunciation.

When I write, my words flow smoothly from my pen, water following a familiar and friendly stream, carrying the connotation and the curvature of my words across the creek bed and to the paper.

Yet, when I open my mouth,

my words became mangled and muddied by mispronunciation and anxiety fueled shyness and self-loathing.

Before I speak, I painstakingly practice and carefully construct each and every syllable, as to communicate my thoughts correctly.

But, when I open my mouth,

my thoughts are stopped short and transformed into hopeless, meaningless utterances

and once more my words are

cut, cursed, chopped.

I write to be heard.

I cannot seem to raise my voice in the face of an unexpected and unwelcome remark but on paper I can raise hell.

My voice cannot fathom the infinite volume and emotion that pounds inside my skull as my words accumulate like clouds, forming profound messages that can only storm down and drown me as my teeth continue to clench and water collects inside my mouth and fills my lungs with an aching disdain.

My ink, my pen, my paper,

my liquid luck

I write to be heard, as my voice cracks under the monumental weight of my words and falls silent under the deafening screams that saunter

just behind my lips.

 

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