To Pen

Something happens, I think, when pen meets paper; something, of course, more than just the bleeding of ink onto a vacant white. It's as if the paper itself already knows what is to be or what should be scrawled across its blank face. When pen meets paper, a powerful flow of truth bursts like lightning from the emptiness, surges through the pen, the hand, the arm, the chest, and thunders in the heart. It then takes a true writer to harness that flow and write until the paper is laden with truth. A writer, whether of poetry, fictional novels, or biographies, writes about what it is to live. The reader will know truth when they see it, for it is found in all words except those written to intentionally deceive. Those words, those perverted twists of ink, are as apparent to a reader as a misused puzzle piece jammed into the center of the puzzle. It may hold the right shape and fit like all the others, but the image it shows does not correspond with its surroundings. The truth does not willingly dwell with falsehoods. A writer, then, a true writer, must allow the truth to be written unhindered; a writer must write like he is putting together a puzzle, fitting the pieces together as they must be fitted.

The pen is nothing without the paper; the paper is nothing without the writer; the writer is nothing without the pen. To my eye, writing is the most versatile of all the arts. A picture may be worth one thousand words, but with one thousands words a writer could paint a multitude of images in the mind. It is the writer's charge to suffer the onslaught of ideas, stories, passions, and words that beg to be written constantly. It is the writer's duty to do them justice when and while he can. Though it may not realize it, the world is hungry for truth, for something it can stand on. For my part, I will write, because I know I must. Stories must be told, words must be penned, and truth must take root in the minds of all who scan the bleeding ink. Something happens, something profound when pen meets paper; for out of the surge, out of the thundering parade of truth, a seed is planted. A seed is planted and nurtured in the vacant white, and out of the emptiness an inky proclamation of life bleeds its truth into the hearts of all who read what has been written.