VOF Week Two: (You can't escape your own words)

Scribbles, notes, emails, writings, stories, poems, diaries, thoughts, reflections, whatever you wanna call them, I did them. I wrote on papers, boards, notebooks, journals, the Internet, whatever you wanna call it, I did it.

And then one day, I threw it all away.

I threw my notes away because I did not want the day to come when when people might take my words seriously. They might get the false assumption that my words mattered, or that they signified who I truly was. They might get shocked by my personal thoughts, my bitter moments, my anger, my grief... They might get the impression that I was someone else entirely in my writings. They might conclude things based on my words. I thought, and the more I thought, the more papers I tore.

I couldn't just have it all available and out there; all those words wandering around; owning me with their power. All those memories I'd rather forget. A secret crush. A silly moment. A shallow way of thinking. An embarrassing action. I tore those papers down.

I tore and tore, as there was some kind of truth out there. There was easy proof that I had not always been as smart as I'd like to think I am. There was proof that I had not always been ''together''; that I broke down at moments and had weak breakouts at others. There was proof that my instincts had often gone wrong; people had often been cruel; friends had been deceitful. All this information that I chose to selectively forget and get out of my memory was out there: embarrassing, sad, lonely, crushing moments that are more like one big joke now. Sure, they're a joke, I tell myself, nothing serious. We did not know better, we were younger, all those memories do not matter, they're just silly. They're so silly they had to be thrown away in fear someone might take them seriously.

So I threw the words away; some were torn, others thrown; I tried to erase some words; burn others down. However, no matter how I tried, the words did not cease to exist. Those embarrassing moments were still there. They wouldn't go away. All those moments that I'd rather do without were still documented in my brain. They're still around. Even if not visible, they make up one big silence, the shreds of which make up who I am and how I ended up this way.

Since then, I have not really seen my visible notes anymore, until I came across pulsewire. I see my words through this journal entry now; floating amidst the thousands of words out there. And my words? They are not scared anymore. They are no longer in hiding. They are soaring up high and they are free; as they are no longer scared to reach out. There is no longer fear of the words owning me, for they are shared now, and they belong to us all.