Creator of Words

Tonight I feel like a little girl again. I have escaped reality to the small corners of my imagination. I am accompanied only by the story in my head and the small smile playing at the left corner of my mouth. It's as if I have played a trick on reality. I have bested it again, befuddling the mundane into something beautiful once more.

It has become a ritual. The end of the day is signaled by my 200-pound eyelids, the buzzing of the living room fan, the comfort brought from melodies by Jason, John and Norah. They quiet my mind until it can fully enjoy the solitude of the silence. I brush my teeth. Fold up my glasses, placing them carefully on the shelf. I say my prayers. I lay on my side in bed. And my mind begins to spin away.

It weaves a tapestry of truth enriched by the vibrant colors of hope and expectation. It is textured by the memory of past and present heartaches, and discomforts. Yet, in the silence, my mind becomes a creator of perfection. Perfect thoughts are born that encompass the emotion found within my afternoon of monotony, my evening of predictability and midnights of inevitability.

My eyes beg for sleep. My joints and muscles sigh in agreement, wanting nothing more than to rest in that heat swamp of a bed. But my soul compels my fingers to type the thoughts swirling through my brain.

I have found myself through words on a page. The ideas that fill the paper have filled my very existence with meaning. I am my words.

These words have led me to a balcony on the second floor of a run-down building. I sit with my back slumped against a sliding glass door with a weathered screen. My toes, painted pink, curl over a dusty black railing, stretching them in an oddly pleasant way.

The cool air feels heavenly on my bare skin. I sit in baggy shorts, and a plaid flannel shirt I picked out from the men's section of a thrift store in Kalispell.

In front of me, a story below, the bushes rustle. A branch of a tree bangs against the chain-link fence. I sit up straight to look bravely into the dark distortion in front of me. A small black figure emerges from the brush, his pointy ears and long, slender tail practically dancing as he weaves in and out of the foliage.

The moon, bright and full shines supremely to my right. With the continuation of the earth's rotation, it sneaks further from my view, hiding behind my apartment complex.

It moves, and like the earth, I must move with it. I am not meant to escape to balconies in hopes of being rescued. I am not a damsel waiting to be saved. I am a creator of thought. A writer of words. A lover of ideas.

Tonight the balcony has become my sanctuary, a nostalgia for my simpler childhood. But in a few hours time, my moon will fade. I will be left an adult, alone to write the rest of my story with perfect words and beautiful ideas.