Reflections

Something is changing inside of me. I feel it just underneath my skin, something new, something different that wasn’t there before. My own Dark Passenger, if you will. I feel withdrawn, still, happier by far in silence, surrounded by only myself—thinking or feeling my own emotions rather than packing myself with people, like a fish on ice. I am not afraid to be alone, and that is how I spend much of my time. The dogs are my constant and sometimes only companions while I’m at home. They don’t make demands, don’t care if I want to sit quietly and think, and only offer occasional sighs or licks as punctuation to my thoughts. Here, I feel that I must step in and explain that I love being with my friends as well, I am not resigned to hermitage in my house with the blinds drawn, scratching words over and over again on my walls like a disturbed patient, but I love my house and the solitude it offers. My insides are raw, scraped bloody by this something inside of me, struggling to get out. I can go nowhere without a pen and a pad of paper, because at the least expected moments, my something frantically screams lines from poems, stories or novellas begging to be written. I can’t force them to the back of my brain as I had been able to in the past. This time and place in my life is certainly not conducive to making friends or “getting out”, but finally I am able to write. This shadow I feel inside me swells, guiding my hand to put pen to paper, wringing out desperate words from my previously stagnant brain. My works are not bright, but for all who know me, I’m sure it is no surprise. I don’t feel depressed, manic or disturbed, just finally like the writer I have strove for so long to become.