The Silent Voice

I do not consider myself to be the best writer in the world. On the contrary, there are times I even think myself to be the worst, though I know that not to be true either. Though good or bad, I know that writing is part of who I am. I often feel it is more a part of me than just speaking. The written word is perhaps the only language I have found which allows me to say all that I feel I need to. What I speak is simply English, but what I write is so much more.

I remember the first time I thought I was a good writer. My fourth-grade English teacher was known by most students to be the strictest teacher in the school. She graded everyone’s work very harshly and would correct us even when just speaking with her. When she announced that we were to be writing poems for our next unit, most of the class groaned and complained. However, I was excited. I enjoyed writing little stories here and there. Poetry seemed like a nice challenge. The first poem I ever wrote was simple and childish looking back now, but it was the first thing I ever really created that I was remotely proud of. I was still terrified as I handed over my creation to the teacher and watched as her critical eyes scanned the paper. To my surprise, she told me that the poem was actually very good and that I was a very talented writer. This praise sparked something in me. I thought to myself, “If she likes my writing, then I must be good.”

That was the moment I truly became a writer. I began to write more poems and I was so excited to share them with anyone patient enough to read a fourth grader’s work. I shared my writing with teachers, family members, friends, and even those I didn’t know all too well. The world was my audience, my critic, and my inspiration all at once. I started to branch out, writing short stories and even the beginnings of books along with the poems with which I began. I felt like I had a purpose—to imagine stories and tell them through the written word. Writing, for me, was an outlet. I had always been very shy and very reluctant to speak to people. However, with the written word I could say things I could never even dream of communicating verbally. I had so many ideas sprouting in my head that the only way to get them out was to write them down. Even the stories and poems I never allowed anyone to see were important to me, as they were still what I poured all my creativity and thoughts into. It was as if parts of me were able to live on outside of my body in the form of little words on paper, and it created more room in my mind for new ideas and even more writing.

This passion I had for writing didn’t dull until I was about thirteen. While in middle school I noticed a change within myself. There were many things in my life that I began to struggle with and it began to affect me mentally. I found myself becoming even more introverted, to the point where talking to people became more of an obstacle, even a phobia at times, than a natural occurrence. It seemed like I was closed off from the world and I felt there was nothing I could do to stop it. When this happened, I began to write less and less, and what I did write was dark and pessimistic. I no longer shared what I wrote with anyone as I didn’t see the point in it anymore. The ideas still came to me, though sparsely, and while I still sometimes felt the urge to write them down, I was not excited about doing so as I once was. I felt like I was only writing because something within me said I had to. It was no longer a passion, but an expulsion of built-up emotions and thoughts that would clog my mind if not properly removed—something I had to do in order to function properly.

In high school I continued even further down this path. Further struggles led to deeper isolation and even fewer ideas. I now had absolutely no motivation to write, and so I didn’t. The documents on my computer were left unfinished, perhaps never to even be thought of again. My notebooks, which were once overflowing with creativity and inspiration, now sat empty, hidden away in desk drawers. The only things I wrote were papers required for classes, and those were always put off until the last minute and written hastily and carelessly. With no outlet, there was no way for me to channel my thoughts or feelings since I still didn’t have the ability to express them efficiently enough through speech. I found myself in an odd world of silence, where I longed to let loose all the ideas trapped in my mind, but no longer had the means to do so. I ignored any ideas that came to me, keeping them locked away until they began to drown me, haunt me. For a while I felt that spark of creativity and passion had been completely snuffed out.

However, that spark was not lost forever. Just a few years later I began seriously working on my internal conflicts and started to learn how to manage them better. It was difficult trying to find my passion for writing again, but I eventually found it, and once I did, it was as if it had never been lost in the first place. I reopened the documents, the papers, the notebooks that had been closed for so long. I revised old works and began creating new ones. Once again, I had a voice, and even though it was a voice no one could hear, it was mine nonetheless. Having this outlet back allowed me to be more open to people and not feel so isolated. Though I still had a lot of progress to make on allowing myself to be vocal and open again, being able to write helped me find my way back to my old self. It is something that I still struggle with, but now I have a way to manage and get through. No longer drowning, I’ve learned to swim well enough until the tide of ideas and emotions goes down.

The language I speak in my writing is one that I hold close to me. Although I am quiet in person, on paper I am loud, vibrant, and exciting. I share things with my pen and paper that I can never express out loud. My voice may seem small, even insignificant, but that is only because my true voice is one that cannot be heard but can only be seen. My voice is not simply sound, but rather an entire world of stories that can only exist on paper. I recognize my particular means of expression is a language many people do not speak, and may even find inadequate. However, I believe that everyone has these other languages they speak only to themselves and loved ones. Just one may have a particular voice they use with their friends which differs from the voice they use when speaking with their mother, I have a language I keep to myself. There are infinite languages we may speak and none of them are wrong. My writing is not a way for me to remain silent, it is a way for me to have a different voice, and it is the language I choose to “speak”. I am not silent. Perhaps you’re simply not listening closely enough.