My words had finally come back to me. Inspiration found me in various forms, various people, various movements. I put hand to pen to paper and wove tapestries of emotion that I pressed my face to at night to inhale for relief or cry into for release. But as parts of my life began to unravel so did my words. And now I feel them leaving me again.
What frustration it is to have so much to say but no way to say it! Words have never passed my lips with ease. Always I needed fingers and ink and dead trees to communicate. I never wondered what eyes would find my words, the evidence of my grief and happiness. The release was all that mattered.
Now as my words abandon me and I caress empty notebooks I feel myself becoming full and fat off of the things inside of me that cannot be released but need to be released. It is a sick feeling and in efforts not to explode or choke on all of these... feelings, I find myself looking for outlets in my body, any open part of me to pour out these unwanted things pushing against the walls of my physical and mental self.
Memories of youth, years flying by but it felt so slow then. Freedom, then elementary school, middle, high. Back then when the words were gone, what did I do? I remember pillows and mirrors and running water. I remember broken glasses and shaking hands. And speaking to myself slowly, quietly. Steady. Steady. Set and go.
And then my hands would still and while they put down no words still it was a release. And such a fascination. To see the things that made me, the things that tried to break me, to bring it all to the surface and to just see.
You think that you change. Through the years of childhood, puberty, teenage blues, adulthood, how can you possibly remain the same? While hair styles, fashoins, and even names may change, the inside is still the same. So the other night when I went looking for more outlets and found them with hands that were now bigger, fingers that were longer, the inside was the same. I am still Ashley. While people in my past may catch glimpses of me and not remember me because of fuller lips, bigger eyes, and thicker legs all it takes to find me is an x-ray.
I fight to be relieved. I mean if I never change on the inside than can't I always find myself. But disappointment is heavy and it won't pour out. If I am the same what progress has been made? Does change equal progress? How quickly and violently I rebel against anyone who requests a change of me, so then why do I ask it of myself? If I can still turn to my past for a bitter but relieving solace then why do I feel disappointment?
I fight not to press out more pieces of me looking for the answer because I am not sure that it is in me. It may be something that has to come to me. And if I pull out all of me piece by piece, what will be left to be found by the truth?
