open letters to no one

no

today, they said
'are you going to be a writer?'
today and everyday, I said
'no.'

it was an offhand no, armored with loud tin-can confidence I'd drilled into my head night after night of telling myself "I'll never get there, there's no one left to listen, you'll be filling up journals the rest of your life just to
sit
in
your
closet."

it rings like the truth,
rattles around in my stomach with sharp, snarling edges that should surely be a little dull from use by now.

(it's not. it aches and stings like the prick of tears in my eyes at the thought of pages full of dust, not wonder, but I've already been bleeding for years and no one has seemed to notice any hints of crimson staining my clothes, my fingertips yet)

but it felt like a lie,
with my journal lovingly tucked away in my bag in that very room, my phone full of words imbedded in every digital crack in my very hands, sentences I was itching to write down when things quieted down a little floating around in my very head.

I've been a writer. I am a writer.
and if I can't even say that aloud, how could I admit that words flow from every pore on my body and I've been longing to put them down on paper in a way that leaves me satisfied instead of restless since I knew what a pen was?

no.
no no no.
I'll say it again and again until my heart stops. I'll never be a writer, because I already am (and I've already failed).