Writing: A Love Story

Intro: This is mainly a writing exercise, and it came along the lines of my question, “What if Writing was a person?” Admittedly, jotting this down was easier than I thought, though the planning took an entire week in my head. I suppose that tells me that the love for writing never really leaves you, not even when you’re too busy to do it as often as you want.

Writing: A Love Story

Marilag Angway
June 2015

The act of Return is as seamless as Leaving. All it takes is the opening of a door. That is what she thinks.

But her hand falters at the knob.

She stands there, unsure. It is one thing to think about the ease of sliding back into the beat, quite another entirely to the doing. She thinks about how it ended between them. How what they shared had spiraled down to insurmountable distance, until gradually the ache disappeared and there was nothing to do but move forward.

It was something to apologize for, her acceptance of the inevitable.

She stands there, hollow. Outwardly, every move forward feels right, and there are no regrets. Sure, she leaves a part of her soul behind, but who doesn’t? It is worth the sacrifice, she thinks, up until she can no longer feel it. She goes through the movements, and outwardly, this is enough.

She is numb.

She is unmoving.

She is ice.

It was everything to apologize for, her letting things go.

She takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly, slowly. She opens the door. She steps inside the threshold.

He stands there, surprised. There is a familiarity to his expression; the quirk in his mouth that forms a silent but urgent question, the involuntary brush of his hand to his hair, the nervous clench of a fist, the brief flash of pain and hurt and joy and relief in his eyes. He holds a fighting stance until her gaze meets his and she can tell when his body relaxes. It is, after all, in tune with her own.

She stands there, whole. There are no words exchanged between them, but somehow he knows that she is sorry, and she knows that she is forgiven. And that is enough to bring them both forward.

They stand there, together. He envelops her in an embrace and her soul returns and she thinks to herself that she has had the best of both worlds because she was there before and is here now and so is he. Her mind whizzes and her heart thrums and finally, finally, there is a sense of completion to her journey.

She is feeling.

She is stirring.

She is fire.

She is home.