Member-only story
The Only Things I Write About…
…are the things I can’t say.
Here I come, a writer monomaniacal in intent, though I too have my excuses. As a novice, I was taught best write about the things you know. I did, though it wasn’t long before I grew cocky in my skills. Perhaps to hide the ocean of things that remained (and remain) un-known to me. Gradually, I transitioned from writing things which I knew to things I didn’t know how to talk about.
I was a mere teenager then and even more unskilled around people than I am today. So I wrote then of all the things under the sun. I wrote of feelings and sex and politics and ideas, some new, most borrowed. In penning out the things I could not speak, I really came into my own. I blossomed as a writer and devoured the praise. It might not seem like it to you, but there are few things more arresting to a shy teenager than being complimented for the things she can’t say.
But then I grew old. Worse, I outgrew my timidity, and learned how to speak a tongue of my own. Borrowed, at first, but that was only suitable since most of the thoughts I longed to discuss weren’t entirely my own, either.
In time, I learned how to talk of sex and sometimes even love. I developed a skill for debates, and learned like most grown-ups how to deftly conceal all the things I don’t quite know.
