Writing provides nourishment for my soul and a reprieve for my overly analytic mind. Without the ability to express my tumultuous feelings on paper, I would surely implode from the pressure and sadness residing within me. The act of writing saves me each and every day, allowing me to function as an individual in society. Without writing, my evanescent existence would have faded out long ago. Words are the crutches that aide my limping soul. They reach into dark places inside me and provide the medium on which I can reintroduce palettes of color and light to the remaining solitary depths, as the words fill the cracks and fissures in my soul, and start an irreversible healing process. Writing is essential for the continuation of my survival. This I believe.

   The words pour out of me--handfuls of drifting ash that ignite small sparks within my soul and meld my fiery emotions into poems and stories. The words are inexorable, but I do not wish to impede their progress, for with each word I write, the burden that my soul carries lessens. I write to remember and to forget. I write to understand and to find acceptance within troubling experiences. I write to nudge myself in a positive direction.

   This self-healing impetus takes many forms; from poetry to personal narratives, from essays to plain old journaling, but when I write, the outcome remains constant, and the words tumbling from my brandished pencil fall in synce with my shuddering, yet relieved breaths. My heart unclenches and my emotions unravel, yet I can find strength within my trials when they stare back at me from paper that is carpeted with my swirling thoughts.

   Writing about significant events in my life--whether positive or negative--allows me to process them and illuminate how they have shaped me as a person. Ever since 6th grade, when I began to be harassed by my peers, I have feverishly scribbled my hopes and fears until my pencils have been worn down to mere stubs.

   My childhood ended abruptly in middle school and my innocence was extinguished as every brabed insult and agressive action ripped at my skin, escalating to a single incident that shattered me both physically and emotionally. Some battle scars still remain; both visible and hidden, on my body and in my soul, by their hands and by my own. The red, angry lines remind me of the physical pain I endured, but it is the sadistic words their tongues lashed me with that remain open, throbbing wounds. Contrary to the popular, yet misguided, childhood idiom about how words can never hurt you, I believe that sticks and stones may break my bones, but the bruises will fade away; while words hurt, inflict, and wound, haunting me every day.

   By writing, I can take the insults and slanders they used to repeatedly stab me and twist a jagged knife into my heart, and reconstruct the words to illustrate that everything they did to tear me down only made me a more resilient and compassionate person. The trials I endured all gave me strength in the end, even if it took years for certain suffocating events in to metamorph into knowledge that I could use to alleviate others' suffering. My words, demanding attention with their solid, dark shapes displaued on a contrastingly stark white sheet, scream louder and more insistently than their's. My words build a bridge from my lonely shore to the bustling chaos of everyday life. I follow the ruminating path of my own aspirations towards a better future, build upon and only made stronger by the foundation of their ugly, heavy words.

  They believed words could tear me down and kill my individuality and values, but they were wrong. She believed that I was lower than the dirt she scraped off her fancy shoes, while bemoaning their loss like a banshee, but she was wrong. He believed that he had the power and could control and intimidate me, forever playing the cat to my mouse, but he was wrong.

   All of them were wrong. Once I discovered the art of writing, I realized that my words were more powerful than their's, and could reveal turths about myself that had been previously hidden even from me. And I let those truths build up around me like a shield, repeating them as a mantra, in times of fear and perceived hopelessness; I am strong. I am resilient. I have survived. He does not hold the power, and it was not my fault. I am not the names they called me. I will never stoop to their level--especially his level. I am a good person and I can construct a better future for myself. I deserve to be happy and loved; I deserve to be alive.

   My words may not represent the whole of me, but no one can understand me better than through my own painfully honest writing, because my raw emotions and true perceptions lie between the lines, linking together strings of words to give them power. They are my heartstrings, and embody what anchors me to reality and sanity. Words are not just marks on a paper to me; they are the blood that runs in my veins, the medicine I take to alleviate the pain in my soul, the bandages that hold together my wounds, and the sustenance that allows me to grow and thrive. This I believe and will always believe, no matter what bitter words the future has in store.