Love Letter

A segmented essay I wrote for my AP Lang and Comp class during my period of writers block.

2:01 AM

You are the worst thing that has ever happened. To my writing.

I sit here gawking at the blank page wishing words could come out. Praying something, anything, flows onto this page. Writer’s block for a week straight is as rare as a drought in the rain forest. This blank document has been sitting on my computer screen for the last seven days, constantly laughing in my face. Here we are playing the familiar game of one sided Russian roulette, my computer screen gleaming back at me as it watches me gradually prepare to commit my own writing-induced suicide.

2:47 AM

Click. Click. Click. Erase. Click. Click. Click. Erase. The familiar act is performed as I try to type my English essay.  In any normal situation, the letters would fly across the sheet. They would practically type themselves. But today, they refuse to escape my mind through my fingers. Get up. Stretch. Check my phone. Smile down at your text. Quickly dismiss it. No Dania focus.  Sit back down. Get back up. Jump around. Trying to somehow loosen the sentences up so they come pouring out. My fingers cautiously rest upon unfamiliar territory as they move around the keyboard so slowly it seems as though they are avoiding land mines.

3:16 AM

I don’t even think this classifies as writer’s block. If possible it’s worse than that because I am on my knees pleading for anything to come onto this screen. Whether it’s a short story filled with angst about growing up in a place where you never belong, a rant against United Nations and their lack of international efforts with genocide, a narrative to depict the flaws in the American school system, or an account about my constant battle with anxiety. It could be a Dr. Seuss poem for all I care. Anything.  Because I used to be able to sit down and write a real piece steaming with resentment against everything wrong in this world. I use to be able to point out every flaw, every aspect, about the condemned world around me. But now I can’t. Because you make me too… No. Focus. Take a sip from the water bottle to the right. Look for my demons on the left. Actually hoping they’re there to give me some sort of inspiration. Sadly, they left my side the day you came into my life. They picked up my troubles and that chip I held on my shoulder and fled. All because of you.

4:08 AM

I rack my brain for anything real, anything that isn’t idiotically romantic or a use of cheesy, bad sounding figurative language.

Like, “He stood tall, as tall as six-foot-two-inch tree.  His laugh was pure, hoarse, and rumbling, like that sound a dog makes just before it pukes up its doggie kibble. And falling in love with him was so beautiful it hurt. Hurt like the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall. He grew on me like he was a colony of Salmonella and I was a room-temperature chicken leg. I love him. I love him. I love him.”¹

And with that sentence, I surrender. Because all of this is a result of me thinking too long with my heart instead of my head. Forgetting everything on going around me; all the problems in the world, the problems in this society, the problems in my family, problems in myself. It was beautiful, it was magical, it was bullshit.² Because I used to spend my time watching the news, protesting in the streets, fighting for what is right, and thinking about saving the world. But now all I think about is you. And whether you’re thinking about me too. And maybe that would make a good piece of writing…And this is crap. I stare back at my white page in disappointment.

4:52 AM

 Pick up my phone. Shuffle through my music. Land on a love song. Listen…Flip to the next song. Keep flipping. Keep flipping. Keep flipping. Get up. Jump around. This time to get the thought of you out of my mind.

Give Up.

Sit back down. Stretch my fingers out. And type. Close my eyes letting my thoughts take over my body and soul and type. The words begin to cover the page, immersing them in my mind like a tsunami. The letters dance across the screen conveying every emotion that I feel at that very moment. The anger, the frustration, the resistance, the fear, the happiness, the joy, the excitement, the intensity all make their appearance on the page as it fills to the brim with raw passion. Without thinking what I am doing or where I am, I let my hands and my mind take me to a sense of brilliance only found when writing a sheer piece of genius.

Because I have always been someone who falls between the cracks of this life; someone who never knew where they belonged. I didn’t belong in the American society because of my religion. I didn’t belong in the Arab society because of my beliefs. I was a headstrong, bright, bewildered girl trying to find where her puzzle piece fit in. That is where my frustration took root. Being on the outside teaches you secrets and insights anger in the world around you. But once I learned that my place was in your arms, against your chest, eyes closed, everything I knew before was gone.

Falling in love hurts. It will knock a person on their a*s and kick them when they’re down. Love plays dirty. It is mean, deceptive, rude, and cheating.³ Love is just plain painful. But all the pain is worth it; in order to see the beauty of the stars, there must be a certain amount of darkness along with them. Watching a connection that is almost unreal unfold before one’s eyes is incredible. The ability to be in love with someone so much it hurts in unearthly.

We learned to be like vines. But we don’t grow out, we grow in. Intertwining and sharing spaces and things never thought to exist. We learn to spell live “l-o-v-e”, and we learn to spell love “g-i-v-e.” And in that moment, I realized that love is screwed up and cruel and awkward and funny and wonderful.⁴ I saw that love is just plain beautiful.

5:45 AM

Looking at my page to behold the monster of inner thoughts I have created, I attempt to make sense of the jumble word art the painted my page the private color of black and white. It could have said “I love you” over and over a thousand times and in my mind it would have meant the same thing as I had written. Because that was the only thought in my mind. You were the only thought in my mind. And I don’t see how you could be the worst thing that has ever happened to my writing if you were the best thing that ever happened to me.

Author's Note

Let me know what you think of the paper as whole. How well does it flow and does it make sense.