sudden silence, sudden heat.

i'm drowning. i can't. i can't find someone who needs my skills and talents, i have no reason to create, no reason to draw, i feel like i have no voice, like i could scream and scream and no one would hear the sound as it echoed off the walls and my immense talent and passion slowly dried up like the sound of my voice fading from the air. almost as if it had never been.

you asked why i led you to the back of my neck, with my head bowed to your chest. maybe i led you to the top of my spine, to the throat chakra, so that your lips, so gifted, so appreciated in their skill, so powerfully communicative might somehow clear my metaphysical blockage, free my voice that the world can hear me speak.

i have spent so much time trying to make everyone else happy, to create things for other people, to fulfill someone else's wishes and needs... it's time to stop and really think about what I want to say. maybe in college i had it wrong, i was so focused on giving teachers what i thought they wanted... i never paused to ask myself what i enjoyed doing, or what i wanted to communicate. maybe in the year since graduating i have developed a voice, and it is fluttering and beating at the walls of my body to get out. but reality and inspiration cancel each other out. who am i to draw and paint and design, when i should be applying, and sending out resumes, and scraping together money to get by? who am i to use my expensive art supplies, when i can't afford to replace them?

why am i here?

what am i supposed to be creating?

this whole hip hop scene is fascinating. I have never before heard such subtle genius and eloquence, before i met these impassioned wordsmiths. maybe that is a part of my epiphany, watching the evolution and movement of language into a powerful medium to communicate their thoughts, but at the same time, the words become complex sounds that throb and pulse, meaning surfacing randomly out of the flow of staccato rhythm from the highly trained and symbiotic instrument that fills the lungs... their voices.

voice.

that what this all comes down to, right? same theory and composition, different medium.

so while i sit here, writhing and choking on my growing voice, but not letting it tentatively make a few interesting points, or argue for the value of its existence, i have nothing to show should an opportunity arise.

maybe, if i start to speak, to feel, to paint, to have a conversation... the opportunities will avail themselves to me. i guess it's time to stop caring who would or wouldn't like what i have to say, who i offend, who has hurt me in the past, or stopped loving me because they wanted me or my work to be something i'm not, to take a stand, to finally pause...

and listen to the sound of my own voice.

maybe having a voice is what i was missing this entire time.