There have been times in my life in which I have felt as if I were trapped. Sometimes this was due to exhausting, meaningless relationships tha I was too afraid to let go of, while other times it was caused by the feeling of being held hostage by my own mind. Regardless of the reasoning behind my discontentment, there was only one constant that I could always fall back on to help me escape; writing.
As a person who has a hard time telling others how I feel, I always found it easier to write about how I felt than it would be for me to resolve issues with confrontation or counseling. Whatever emotion I wanted to convey, I could do so by pouring my thoughts onto a page. Writing has always given me a sense of release, and poetry has always been my favorite genre of literature.
Since reading and writing poetry has always been the best way for me stay sane, I decided to create a blog where I could feel free to publish my poems and write about whatever it was that crowded my mind without worrying about the judgment of others. I would post a poem when I was feeling a specific emotion or wanted to remember a moment or even an entire day, and it became my little online journal.
As mentally clearing as it has been to be able to write and publish whatever I wanted with the comfort of knowing that I would be the only one to see it, the notion of publishing what I was feeling and what I wanted to say with no one listening felt pointless. It started to feel like my writing was just a shout in the void. No one was hearing what I had to say, and no one even knew I wanted to have my voice heard.
With everything going on in the world, I started to feel like writing for just myself was no longer enough.
There are things that need to be said, questions that need to be answered, and problems that need to be resolved. Remaining silent when I have so much to say wouldn't be fair to me or to anyone else who believes what I believe but are too afraid to say what they want to say.
Even though writing what's on my mind for the public to see is scary to me, I owe it to myself and others to say what needs to be said and help others see and understand why I believe what I believe, as well as why some (often unknown) issues need to be resolved.
With all of that said, I'm Alice, and I will no longer be silent.