Metaphorically speaking, I am over the moon to write this article. I am excited to see how it will turn out, for I am unsure of its true direction. That's exciting to me. If you know what a metaphor is, then you know I am not actually over the moon. I am still here on planet earth, my level of excitement is so high though, it appears as if I am in outer space.

Part of a constellation. Catching my breath by sitting on a crater before taking a quick dip in a milky way. I can take this little galactic trip simply with the usage of words, nothing more and nothing less. This lies in the power of writing. This is the breathtaking, life-giving power of the metaphor.

I have been thinking about the metaphor slightly more than usual over these past few weeks as I have been trying to push my writing boundaries, yet somehow keep coming back to the metaphor. I continuously use metaphors and similes whether I am writing an article, a poem, or an essay, for some odd reason I just default to these literary tools.

It’s as if telling you what something is like is more effective than telling you what it actually is. Which doesn’t make any sense. But we do this anyway.

I can tell you that my world feels like it's falling apart because that’s easier than telling you what I am actually experiencing.

Or is it that you can’t understand what my mind and body are undergoing without actually experiencing it yourself, so I am forced to use the simile? Are we cursed with experience, or are we enhancing the reality of everyone else’s as we decrease our own? Is this selfless or selfish?

I can say things like, “There is a fire in my veins.” How dare I limit myself like this though, pretending the continuous combustion of heat and passion can be contained in little tiny fleshy tubes inside of me. I am selling myself short by saying, “There is a fire in my veins,” when I actually need to say something more appropriate like, ‘Every morning when I wake up there is a split second before my eyes open, before I am fully conscious of the world around me, where my mind is floating in outer space, contemplating if it actually exists or if I’m just dreaming, wonders what actual love is and what I will eat for dinner, wonders who else is waking up at exactly 6:31 am with me, plans out my entire career and mentally packs a duffel bag just in case I need to leave today or tomorrow, wonders if that quiz is actually this week and if there’s anything I could have done better yesterday, if I will be better today, or if I will have to wait until tomorrow.

My entire being aches for issues I can’t solve, the people I miss and don’t get to see, the things I want be but just aren’t quite there yet. The things I want to do but haven’t. This humongous, flaming, run-on sentence takes place all in just a few seconds, and then I wake up. Fully. And I have to walk this tightrope day after day trying to differentiate between what is reality and what is strictly metaphor, and this makes me feel as though there is a fire in my veins.”

But no one actually says these things. We rely on adjectives, similes, and metaphors alike to dampen the intensity of our reality as we assume other people could never relate to or have never experienced what we are currently in the midst of dissecting.

We compare and contrast, push and pull with words aimlessly hoping that somehow beating around the bush will prevent actual flames the same way you check to see if you locked the door again even though you know you did because no one likes to take chances. The relation of our experiences are no exception. How do I know this? I just used a comparative simile to explain it to you.

We are fragile people with both limited and exponential capacity, and this is both our blessing and curse. We cannot reach nor fathom our potential, our abilities, our experiences, and this leaves us fumbling around with the English language like a child with puzzle pieces from a million different puzzles. We are simultaneously our own problem and solution. And how do you portray this? You kinda don’t. You just use metaphors and hope your art can be as true and deep as the, for lack of a better term, fire in your veins.