My Dear Friend Writing

By Jillian Daneshwar

This piece is about my relationship with writing, and how my life has changed since I was first introduced to it.

I once knew someone who would use a powerful weapon often. When it was pointed at me, I learned not only how it hurt, but how it healed. How I would feel when I wielded it, and I molded it into my shield. What was this material that killed and cured? Words. Once I realized that a pattern of curves and lines could help me free what was killing me inside, I was able to put together the shattered pieces of my life. 

Over the past two years, I’ve been dedicated to my craft. I’ve joined clubs and programs; I even won an award. However, for me, writing isn’t about the satisfaction of recognition. It’s about how it makes me feel. When I’m alone in my room, with tears slipping down my cheeks, words will wipe them away. Whisper in my ear all the things I wish someone would say. Hold me in an embrace so gentle the pain will fade. I need no one else but this extension of me with a different face. I could be on fire, burning with rage. Then, no sooner am I doused by water once the ink flows across a page. It could be the sun evaporating the ocean which I produced and the boat keeping me above the deep blue. So variable, but a part of who I am. The transcendent part of being human. 

It’s almost absurd to think that a side effect to the poison I was forced to ingest was the antidote. The answer.

Ingrained in the core of my identity is one day: August 11th, 2019. A new document breathed to life on my computer screen. The cursor flashed inquisitively as it watched me attempt something I’d never done before. Deep in my mind, I approached a door. Littered in broken padlocks, and crudely zip-tied, all in order to keep the monster inside. With a decisive blow to my mind, it was let out from the prison in which it had been confined. It stung at my eyes, and went in my chest, and sped it up three times. I took all the energy that it did not eat, and forced the monster to reveal its identity. It told me to call it “emotions.” Since it was what I was hoping, it was time to let go. Through the tips of my fingers, the monster flowed. The document came to hold and transform the emotions I had been fighting—into my dear friend, writing. 

Finding writing is incomparable to any other discovery in my life. Nothing else makes me feel so alive. Feel myself. It’s almost absurd to think that a side effect to the poison I was forced to ingest was the antidote. The answer. Solving all my problems and holding my hand firm. So, ask me: who am I? I am writing, and I am words, I reply. 

Process

When I wrote this piece I intended for it to center around the experiences that caused me to turn to writing as an escape. However, as the words began flowing from my mind to the paper, they started to veer into my admiration for writing. It was at this point that I decided to incorporate my personification of writing as an integral part of the essay. The piece is written mostly in poetic diction. I planned to do so from the start in order to represent my pride in being a poet. When I arrived at the conclusion, the rhythm of the writing guided me to the perfect closing line. Reading it over one more time, my dear friend writing and I were satisfied.