She suffocated everywhere she went. She complained about it to everyone, but they all said she was the only one who felt it. The air always felt thick and breathing was a hard task for her. Whenever she entered a room or grabbed a seat in a bus or a car, she instinctively opened the windows hastily although it never seemed to help.
She knew it was something psychological more than physical. She sat with a pen and a paper in her hand, the tip of her pen touching the start of the line for a really long time, hands fidgeting with the pen. Her brain felt stale. She was sure there were so many things that were waiting to break free. It was a rare time in her life when Words failed her. She wrote something, read it again and made an impatient noise realizing it was not even close to the intensity and depth she had in her writing before. She tore the paper irritably and threw it away. It landed up on the floor already strewn with torn papers floating around carelessly. She buried her face in her palms and slumped in the chair.
She stashed the pen away. She snapped at everyone around as if it was their fault she could not write. Finally exasperated, she sat alone and closed her eyes. It was as if the ghosts of her thoughts were waiting for her to close her eyes. They swooped down on her, clawed her heart with their sharp nails, some lunged at her and started throttling her. She gasped for air, breathing hard, clenching fists, trying to muffle the terrible voices that rang in her ears... She would embrace the death if only it took her quickly but it just wouldn't...
"Don't get scared. Don't fight them." The Small Voice Inside Her Head told her, "It won't kill you. You know what? Write about them... Write for them..."
Tired as she already was, she gave up fighting at once. She let them all pounce on her. It was the only way to be strong, she thought, she would carry these scars proudly one day.
She opened her eyes and hurriedly grabbed the pen and a new sheet of paper. She wasn't herself anymore, the world around her did not exist now, she had lost her way, yet found it... As her pen moved fast on the paper, she saw the ink tracing letters on it. Words that came from apparently nowhere, there was no stopping today. She was emptying herself like the ink in her pen. The weight on her heart felt lighter after every sentence she wrote. All her tethered emotions had finally severed the binding ropes and broke out like bad blood gushing out of a gruesome wound...
There was silence now. She closed her eyes again and there was nothing that pounced on her. There she stood- staring at the paper that now held the ghosts inside her, trapped with the chains of Words...
"Finally, I could write!" her own voice sounded surprised to her. She felt liberated. Words were her ultimate saviors. She had tears of joy in her eyes.
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