It’s the One Thing I Need to Live

What is one thing you can’t live without?

Writing. It’s why my tagline is “I write to live.” I truly do. I’d scratch writing into a wall if that’s all I had left.

Since I was a little girl growing up in an end-times cult, writing was my quiet savior, and at times, my ultimate rebellion.

I tell a story in my memoir, Cult Child, how I would write thoughts on little pieces of paper, and then chew them like gum. There was a silent defiance that existed having those free words in my mouth in front of the controllers.

There was an essence in swallowing them, letting them dissolve into my stomach and return to my body. Maybe that’s how the memories stayed with me, settling into my somatic.

Writing has been my lover, my companion and my counselor on the darkest nights, leaving ink-stained tears on journal pages. Streams of consciousness have poured out of my finger tips dumping layers of pain and prose.

Perhaps if I could not write I would sketch. Perhaps if I had nothing to write with I would memorize everything in my mind on repeat. And maybe that’s also writing in a mental style.

Can I continue living without expression? Where would all the emotions be contained? I need words, language and the rhythmic dance of their flow, as I direct this orchestra with ease, and we must continue to write the music.

I write to live.

get this journal