Bleeding in Ink

I’ve been writing my whole life. Not because it’s beautiful. Not because I have something wise to say. Not for applause or clarity or catharsis. Not even because I’m good at it. I write because if I don’t, I might disappear. I write because some feelings are too heavy to carry in silence and too jagged to speak out loud. I write because my body remembers things I wish it didn’t, and sometimes the only way to survive the remembering is to bleed it out in ink. The page has always been the only place that could hold the truth without looking away. I don’t write for healing, I write so I don’t choke on the parts of me I’ve never said out loud. I write so the pain has somewhere to go besides my bloodstream. There are things I’ve lived through that would sound too dramatic, too messy, too much if I said them out loud. But on the page, they get to exist without apology. On the page, I don’t have to make them easier to hear. I don’t have to make me easier to love. I write because on the page, I don’t have to pretend I’m okay. I don’t have to smile. I just have to survive. And sometimes, writing is the only way I do.

My journal is the only place I don’t lie. The only place I don’t tuck myself into something more acceptable. I don’t smooth out the sharp edges or swallow the lump in my throat. On paper, I don’t pretend I’m fine or laugh at things that aren’t funny just to make other people more comfortable. I don’t tone it down. I don’t clean it up. I don’t make my pain easier to look at. I get honest in a way that would ruin most dinner tables. I get raw in a way that would make people shift in their seats. On the page, I unravel. I say the unsayable. I touch the parts of myself I’m too ashamed to admit still hurt. I become the version of me that feels too much, wants too deeply, breaks too easily. And I let her speak. Loudly. Unapologetically.

People call it journaling. My therapist calls it therapy, a healthy outlet. I call it bleeding. I call it screaming where no one can hear you. I call it ripping open the wound before it festers. I call it survival, plain and brutal. Because sometimes the only way I know I’m still alive is by the sound of the pen dragging across the page, trying to spell out everything I’ve never said out loud. I’ve written through panic attacks that left my hands shaking too hard to hold the pen. Through heartbreaks that cracked something permanent. Through funerals where I forgot how to speak, and nights where feeling happy felt like betrayal… because how dare I feel joy when the people I miss are still dead. I’ve written when I felt so invisible I started to wonder if I was real outside of being needed. If I had any worth outside of what I could offer. I’ve written when grief turned me hollow, and even laughter felt like a lie I didn’t have the strength to sell.

I’ve written to ghosts. To the ones I’ve lost and the ones I’ve let go of. I’ve written to the people who never heard the things I was screaming in silence. To the people I’ve loved whose names still live under my tongue. To the wounds that healed wrong and still throb when it rains.

Sometimes I write letters I’ll never send, just to bleed out the bitterness before it eats through my ribs. Sometimes I write to my brother, begging him to come back, to give me a sign, to forgive me for not knowing how to keep him here. I write things I’m too ashamed to say out loud, like how I still wonder if I failed him. How I still have dreams where I save him and wake up sobbing because I never got to. I write to him like he can still hear me. Like I owe him every word I never said while he was alive.

And sometimes I write to the little girl I used to be. The one who twisted herself into shapes for love. Who believed that being easy to love meant never having needs. Who apologized for her feelings before she even finished having them. I write to the girl who mistook being chosen for being safe. Who gave away pieces of herself like she was disposable. I write to her because she still lives somewhere inside me, flinching at shadows, trying to understand why love left and never came back the same.

There are days I stare at a blank page like it’s a mirror I’m not sure I want to recognize myself in. Like if I look too long, I’ll see the parts I’ve spent years trying to outrun. The truth that doesn’t dress itself up. The grief I’ve buried beneath productivity and politeness. Some days, I sit frozen, afraid that whatever I write will make it real. Afraid of what will come up if I stop holding it all down.

And then there are days I spill so much truth it leaves me trembling. Like I’ve just confessed something sacred and shameful to a god who doesn’t answer. Like I’ve cracked my chest open and dared the world to look inside. Some words come out soft. Some come out clawing. Some drag everything with them… the memories, the guilt, the longing I swore I’d buried. And still, I write.

Because the page has always held me better than any arms ever have. The page doesn’t get uncomfortable. It doesn’t pull away. It doesn’t try to fix me. It doesn’t tell me I’m being too much. It just waits. Open. Unafraid. It says, “It’s ok, go on.”

And I do. Even when I’m shaking. Even when the words feel like confessions I never meant to make. Even when I don’t know what I’m trying to say until it’s already there in ink, spelled out in fragments and fury and tenderness, staring back at me like a truth I can’t take back.
This isn’t a hobby. This isn’t cute. This is my altar. My war cry. My whispered last resort. This is where I go when I feel like I’m drowning in a world that keeps telling me to smile through it. This is where I go when I can’t take anymore, when I can’t breathe, when I can’t pretend one second longer. These pages have seen versions of me I wouldn’t dare show the world… angry, broken, begging, undone. They’ve held the screams I swallowed, the guilt I carry like skin, the memories that haunt me more than help me.

One day, maybe, I’ll let the world read these pages. The ones written at 2 a.m. with trembling hands and swollen eyes. The ones written from the bathroom floor. The ones that still smell like grief, stained with tears, and read like I’m trying to claw my way out of my own body. The ones that don’t tie things up with healing or hope. Just truth. Unfiltered, unedited, unraveling.

But right now, I like that they’re mine. The only thing that’s ever been just mine. Not touched by anyone who wants to fix it. Not taken from me. Not twisted or manipulated. Just mine.

Because when everything else slips through my fingers… my sanity, my safety, my sense of self… the words stay.
Even when I want to disappear, the words keep calling me back.
Even when I hate the story, they remind me I’m still here.
The words always stay.
And somehow, so do I.

Author’s note:
Originally written May 12, 2020. A love letter to the pages that saved me, even when I couldn’t save myself.

I wrote this piece from the depths of a block that felt like betrayal, in the middle of a silence that terrified me. The words weren’t just hiding, they felt like they’d abandoned me. When they did come, they sounded foreign, like someone else’s voice trying to parade around as mine. I sat frozen in front of a blank page, but it wasn’t just writer’s block or exhaustion. I was furious. Furious at myself for losing the one thing that used to keep me afloat. Writing has never been a hobby or a pastime. It’s been my lifeline, the only lifeboat in a storm I never asked to be in. And in that dark moment, even that lifeline felt like it was unraveling, slipping just out of reach, leaving me stranded in a silence so loud it nearly swallowed me whole.

This piece wasn’t born from a rush of inspiration. It was clawed out of the dark like a floatation device thrown when I was drowning. It was a whispered, trembling dare to myself to keep breathing, to keep showing up, even when everything inside screamed to stop. I wrote it like I was bargaining with a part of me that wanted to give up, trying to convince myself that maybe, there was still something left to say. That even if the words stumbled out cracked, broken, and slow, they were still mine to own. That I could still speak… even if it was messy, even if it hurt, even if the silence wanted to swallow me whole.

This piece became a mirror I wasn’t always ready to face. A brutal reminder of how sacred writing is to me. Not as something perfect to be shared, but as a messy, holy process of survival. It’s proof that even when I’m unraveling, falling apart at the seams, and feeling utterly lost in the world, the pages still hold space for me. That even when everything else slips away… my sense of safety, my sense of self, my sense of belonging… I haven’t lost this. Writing doesn’t have to come easy to matter. It doesn’t have to be polished or pretty to be powerful. Sometimes, the most sacred, the most radical act is simply to write anyway. To keep bleeding the words out, even when the story feels too raw to tell.

Even if it’s messy.
Even if it tears you open.
Even if you’re not sure how or where to start.

Start there anyway.
I did.

And somehow, the words held on.
And somehow… so did I.