Why Being Called a Writer Unfits Me?
What if I get to write a poem about the tiniest detail of moments that dashed through laugh and cries. The transitory phases where simple emotions drive in all the weight. Writing is too much a burden. It’s a callous way to envision beauty in cruelty and broken laughter.
Let’s rewrite the first paragraph and break the metaphors into bits. Because, in having we get to hold and in holding we get to give away.
Writing, in summary, is a ritual, a consecration higher than vows and grandeur mystery. It is not a burden, still every theme I write about weighs heavily on me. I feel hidden when someone bursts into my space to ask “hey you, you must be a writer?” There is no “must”. Writing is my journey and I need to write even more to know my path leads me. Like a believer heading towards heaven, I choose to risk it all through learning.
If only I get to be a writer, I will write a simple paragraph, never to be forgotten. I will write a novel that will stay with my people forever. I will scribble letters that will change generations and what they conceive about themselves as people of strengths.
I also will spend my life uncovering dark depths and bridging the in-betweens. I will lyric albums that are to be sold and sung by people of colours, not for the jazziness within the rhymes, but for the gift of empowering them. I will write about the days that broke and made me.
We all relearn life’s worth on dark days. We see through pain in moments we are nibbed in between choices that never existed. This also explains why being called a writer unfits me. There is so much to learn from, so many stories to rewrite. My phone is filled with notes and scribbles still, being called a writer shakes me off the wheel.
To be creative is to be heavily burdened and being burdened, in itself, is to daily be in search of what completes one’s self. If I be a Writer or anything close, I will tell my stories with every vulnerability therein.
I just hope this argument wins your heart – that being a writer is more than co-joining words…
Still journeying,
Damilola.
