I used to write. In dusty notebooks that sit upon lonely shelves. In Word documents left unopened. I used to write in my bed in the early mornings on my laptop. Stories, thoughts, lyrics, and poems would flow out of me. Words would come unexpectedly and intensely, like a sneeze you can't hold in. They would come in half empty diners at two a.m. as I frantically scrawled onto a napkin, for fear they would be gone in an instant, just a shooting star of my mind. I would write lyrics for cigarette-smoking, guitar-playing boys who thought they'd make it big someday. I would write fiction with strong characters and poor plot development. I would write poems, meant to be performed, yet too vulnerable to be read.
My mind is constantly going, ramblings of ideas and inspirations. It feels like the busy mind of a genius, yet the thoughts are unoriginal and unimpressive. So they are just that: ramblings. Ramblings of a girl who has the soul of a wild mustang; who, at present, feels more broken in than wild. But perhaps these fences are self-imposed, resulting from a need to slow down and feel secure within the walls. However, there is this swirl of energy that burns deep and starts to rise in me that causes me to bend my head low and rare at the metal bars that encage me. I want to run. Fast, free, and wild. But like most wild things, my thoughts and words are unfocused, untamed, directionless.
I had a professor tell me once that the best way to be a writer is to write. He proposed that good writing didn't have to start with strong inspiration and a knowledge of the direction that it would take. He taught me that the toughest part was simply to begin. (And maybe that's the truth about anything.) You don't need a purpose for your writing, he suggests, but just take off, run, go, write. The wild mustangs may be directionless, but at least they run. Maybe I'll break out of the cage and run free with my thoughts again.
And maybe I'll leave the gate open for the other mustangs to run with me.
