Dear Itzel,
When I tell you to write its because I’m secretly asking myself to. I see the way you weave together words and stories and I sit in quiet awe. Hoping to hold on to a piece of your being with each word you put on paper.
I began writing for myself when I was your age. I often invoked the memories of my childhood to inspire my pen. I called up the dark secrets, playful moments, and teenage angst that I was experiencing and put it on paper. As honestly and wholly as you do now.
I played with words. Tried to manipulate their meaning asked them to dance around ideas and implicitly hint at explicit thoughts. I still try to do that now, only I don’t write them down as often, I let them disappear into the universe and imagine myself one day reaching up into the cosmos for them. Reaching up to catch those shooting stars of words, moments, and raw emotions.
I stopped writing for myself a long time ago. Started writing for grades, and titles, and tests. Lost my hands in the process. Lost my weapons with which I offered to the world that which is only uniquely me.
I am writing again today. Writing to remember. Writing to exist. Writing so that when I speak to you, when I’m asking you to write, I’m doing so because I’m also holding on to my own being.
In Solidarity,
Mama Alaghom
