There are approximately 273,000 headwords in the Oxford English Dictionary, and if you count the obsolete ghosts, the forgotten derivatives, and the phrases that have slipped from living tongues, it swells to over 600,000 word-forms.
And still, I am sitting here trying to drag the right ones out of my chest just to say, “Hold me. Just fucking hold me.” Maybe I can’t find the words because then I’d have to admit I’m human. Then I’d have to admit that most nights I write until my hand cramps and my mind drifts into that half-lit space between dream and thought, because the loneliness of the dark sits at the foot of my bed like a curse I’ve inherited. If I admit that, then I’d have to admit that human intimacy terrifies me. And if I admit that, I have to admit I’ve been closing myself off out of punishment, not preservation.
Then, I’d have to admit I feel safe only with a precious few, and even fewer make me safe enough to even imagine the thought of human touch. And if I admit that, then I’ll have to admit how deeply my ex truly fucked me up, how I’ve been lying to myself ever since, assigning all the blame to my own skin. Then I’ll have to admit that I don’t think I’ve ever truly been held, that I have never known what it feels like to let go without bracing for impact. And then I’ll have to face the fact that it all bleeds from the unresolved trauma of my ancestors. And then I’ll have to accept that they too were shackled by the unresolved trauma of their own ancestors. And then I’ll have to grip my rage by the throat, because if only my ancestors had picked up a self-help book instead of a bottle, maybe I wouldn’t be here, aching for something that seems to grow wild and free in other people’s gardens. Maybe I wouldn’t be here with wet cheeks and no one to hand me a fucking tissue.
And then I gaslight myself with that tired line: “If someone held me, I’d have no need for the pen.” But that’s just a trick my heart plays to justify the loneliness and the ache. The truth is, I have never been held, not once, not really, and yet my words have held others like a cradle. Maybe I don't have value but my words do.
Today, however, I can no longer feed myself that lie without feeling my shoulders clench, because I know I can be held and still write. But as I accept this knowing, I spiral into the thoughts of a struggling artist, how we have always stood on the outside of the glass, pressing our breath against it, scribbling our longing like graffiti on the world. Eventually, I’ll get angry at existence, at the lottery of birth, at the gods or the absence of them. Then I’ll fold into a pillow and sob until my body feels like rock dropped in deep water, until the heaviness shifts, and I float up into the thin, poisonous clouds of my nightmares.
I know. This is the path I chose at birth. Trust me, I know. I’ve read all the books, all the fate-soaked mantras: “God only gives His toughest battles to His strongest warriors.” “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” “Your trauma shaped you into who you are.” And yes, I know the weight of their truth. But sometimes, sometimes, like today, I wonder what life would have been if I hadn’t been forced into the role of the lonely child - healer to all, healed by some.
And as I imagine that other life, frame by fragile frame, I dissolve and hunger for the embrace of another because it gets all too much for the soul to handle. And so we circle back to the start: my hand reaching for a pen, and a blank piece of paper, to hold me instead.