She used to be a writer - she loved it. Words appeared in a steady flow in her head, sometimes so insistently that she felt dizzy until she wrote them down. She thought in stories and poetry - as if there was a silent person sitting in her mind that she had to explain herself to. She played herself short films in her head to send herself to sleep; she read new and exciting books in her dreams; she awoke with ideas on her tongue. She learnt, early on, that if she ate too much she would cut off her supply of words. She learnt that she needed to be sharp and starved in order to create. But she found that she needed to look after herself, to an extent, for when the waves of weary depression found their way too deep inside they washed away any thought at all.
She wasn't always writing, reading, thinking - words came to her when she was upset, sad, alone. They were her comfort blanket. Her parents and friends became redundant as she withdrew into her mind. She didn't notice, she had her thoughts, her pencils and paper, her harshest critic. Her mother, who used to say that her daughter had such a way with words, worried about the change in her child. But she was perfectly content, writing about addiction, deprivation, loss. She'd pour all her stress and sadness onto the page and smile as her headache relieved.
She used to be a writer. She used to stay up all night because those words just had to reach the page. But now she is taunted by blank pages - pure lines stretching away from her. Now she stays up all night with pencil in hand, waiting. But there is nothing - her mind is as blank as the page. She doesn't know how she feels about it, because she relies on the words she writes to tell her how she feels. Her mind is locked away from her - just a small part left to wonder what happened. She is unhappy every single day. She is isolated from her old friends, from the people designated to be her new friends, from her parents. In days gone by she'd be pouring her misery across pages, but today there is only silence.
She can't reach the world. She relies on her mother to tell if the milk has gone off, if the bread is cut straight, if the TV is audible, and she'll never know if the words she speaks sound the way she hears them. She has lost her past, bit by bit. She sold some of it, for money that makes her sick. Some of it was taken, by force, and that she still chases after. Some of it just seeped away when she had her head in her hands. And it seems it was her past whispering words into her head all along, for through her mistakes she hears nothing.
***
I wanted to write more, but that's all I've got I'm afraid. The silence is overbearing. I know it doesn't exactly fit the assignment, but I have nothing left. Maybe I'll redo it if I ever get my mind back.
I know it isn't exactly an into to me, but you have to understand - my words were all I had. I miss them.
