Word Witcher
Do you break my heart, as if it were nothing at all?
Do the words pour forth from your soul as effortlessly as it seems? Rising on gentle updrafts of thought, as an eagle effortlessly rises on thermals, circling ever higher, the barest shift of muscle and tilt of feather lifting beauty to new pinnacles?
Do they appear on the page with the ease of an exhale, each subtle sentence perfectly balanced between weighty meanings and the lightness of laughter? As the orbiting moon so easily pulls the ocean’s breath from the depths of its trenches to the shallows of the beach?
Do you bring me to the precipice and hold me there, gaping at the beauty of your turn of phrase, then push me over the edge into the ecstasy of freefall, without a second glance? Does it come easily to you, to let me hurtle toward the rocks below, believing I will be dashed to pieces on them, my body broken and bloodied, only to catch me at the last moment and lift me once more, soaring into a wild expanse of wonder?
Do you break my heart, fracturing it into a million jagged pieces, as if it were nothing at all? And then, gather the shards and melt them with the heat of your voice, reshaping the pieces into something new, as a glassblower coaxes new shape from molten sand?
Do you wring tears from me, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to leave me gasping, breathless and sobbing, in rapture, enraptured, in desolate, desperate sorrow at your haunting prose?
Or do the words come to you as they do to me: some fragmented and fractal, some scrappy and shapeless, some dredged from the murk or snatched from the sparkling air? Must they be carefully cradled, else they be crushed, and stitched together with gossamer thread? Must they be bullied and bludgeoned and hammered into place? Wheedled and cajoled, begged and bribed and bent to your will?
Must you, as I do, first piece together the intricate skeleton, each bone placed with care, woven with sinew to muscle and skin? Must you craft each feather by hand before your words can take flight and soar, as the eagle does?
Are your hands sliced to ribbons from the shards of the hearts that you shatter and then remake? Do you adore and despise, in equal measure, each painstakingly sculpted sentence?
Do you slave for the words, as I do? Do you bleed for them, gladly, as I do?
Do not answer.
I know that I asked, but I do not want to know.
I care not what lies behind the curtain, what enchantments you summon to ensnare my soul, to spin your magic so seemingly effortlessly. I am under your spell, and I crave your writing as an addict craves the euphoria of sweet, heady oblivion.
If I write with grace, with violence, with poetry or certainty, if I coax tears and laughter and break hearts and remake them, it is because I read grace first in every line that you write.
I thank you.
Author’s note
This piece was written in tribute to my favourite writers here on Substack.
, , , , , , , who have broken and remade my heart, left me breathless, gasping, crying and laughing and taught me more through their stories than any “how to write” post ever could.
Lovely Emily. I believe I have sat across from you at a midnight gathering, I am well acquainted with everyone except for Kendall. A blazing fire, embers of stories spraying gold glitter across the black velvet sky. Always an evening of enchantment. See you next time.
Oh, Emily… Goodness, where to begin! I am so very honoured to be included in this list of writers who are blessed to have moved you. It’s an extraordinary thing, to be shown how one's words can find, greet, and then affect another being. There’s a real intensity to having the potential power that one's words wield mirrored, and I’m bowled over by how gently, how artfully, you’ve offered that mirroring. I will save these words, to return to upon the many days which lay ahead where I will question what and why I am doing. Thank you is nowhere near enough, I love you is far more appropriate 💜