A Collection of the Broken

Author's Note

I’m a writer. At least, that’s the surest thing I can say about myself besides the fact that I’m a boy who’s human. Other than those characteristics, that’s how I define myself. A writer.  Now, I've been writing since I was ten and I haven’t stopped loving it since, but there was something I found unusual about myself in the beginning. Sure, my stories were mystical, supernatural, and- I hoped- interesting, but they weren’t what I expected them to be. When I had first started writing, I had a vision in my mind that I would be crafting stories of adventure and non-stop action, clever stories that took readers on a page-turning thrill ride. But when I began I was at a loss as to why the only ideas I ever expanded, stuck with, edited and finished were stories that held what I felt was meaning. At first, I wrote ideas about light and darkness, good and evil pitted against each other. It was the universal theme I seemed to be so centered upon. My early stories were written with that in mind, though I wondered why.

I remember the first real poem I wrote was sometime before midnight. I was typing away, trimming unnecessary phrases, and basically finding better ways to say what I wanted to in fewer, more powerful words. My fingers jumped from one key to the next, but my eyes were tired. I had woken up from my sleep with an idea which consequently blew sparks in my mind, engulfing sleep in flames. The only way I could drown the fire was to write it. So I turned on my computer and immediately went to Microsoft Word, without even realizing the time.

I continued to type. In the silence and darkness that surrounded me so late at night, I was filled with dreams of an old crooked house. I imagined it had a staircase that winded upwards forever, never reaching any floor. Even though there was no end, I imagined a light somewhere between the bottom and never-ending top. A light so beautiful that it drew the man in my poem to climb the stairs, to try to reach an end to an eternal staircase that offered no conclusion to the story he was seeking. But as his footsteps became more and more distant from the bottom, shadows from the corners and cracks of the house went after him. The man began to sprint up the stairs as not only shadows pursued him, but whispers with incomprehensible speech as well. He knew they were trying to stop him from getting to the light, and he knew it was so far away, but he still ran harder, but the shadows kept coming closer. In a way, I think that’s the idea that started me off, because ever since then I’ve continuously written more and more each day. But the idea that I seem to come back to is good against evil, light versus darkness in a never ending battle- taking place on a never ending staircase as good runs for the light while being chased by the evil darkness.

 I’ve had some time to think about why I love writing. I figured it out the day I put my stories online for people to read. In my nervousness and doubt that I had about myself the moments leading up to pushing the button that would let the world see what I had written, I began to question myself. What was the real reason I was doing this? I realized it’s because I love words. I love them because they let me tell a story, and I’ve found that telling a story is something that composes a symphony of joy inside me. Stories are a means of escape. They’re a journey into another life, another world. They take you to the edges of the universe and back, to the depths of the deepest seas and hearts. All the while, you’re life is on pause. You could have the worst of days, and with a book in your hands, the world will just melt away. That reason, along with many others, is why I love words, writing, and stories. I love giving someone the chance to escape, even for only a couple of minutes, because a break from regular life is what we need. Thinking that, looking at the computer screen, it’s easy to understand why I pushed the button. I just hoped that people would like the escape I offered.