No Edits
“Someone has found solace in your story. You never know when your art is a place where others feel safe retreating.”
Writing has been like coming up for air. After being buried beneath assigned readings, extensive course materials, and the wide city of Atlanta, pausing to write about my experiences is how I simply, breathe. Things make sense and feel less intimidating when I put them on paper.
Atlanta is big. I feel smaller here. But that’s okay because I get to be nobody. I can go places and avoid interactions. I can people-watch and remain unfamiliar. I find safety and solace in not being known. But sooner than later, the place I am resisting will become familiar with me before I even recognize my time here is up. The streets will learn my footprints and tire marks, and the air will have embraced the voice of a Florida boy. Atlanta has claimed me.
Becoming a student again hasn’t been as hard as I thought. When knowledge is present, I’ve never hesitated to sit beneath it and bear the weight of learning. I consider myself an eternal student. But the burden of learning is the way it rearranges my world. Sometimes, I’m scared to see and know. I’m afraid of being exposed to the truth about my life and the people around me. I’d rather they stay the way they are. Lies don’t always hurt us in the moment, but they have the power to change our future. How many of us stand tall and touch the sky because we rest on the shoulders of lies?
When the truth breaks out, it has the power to destroy and disrupt everything around us. When secrets are let loose, they don’t care who they harm. So sometimes, keep the truth away. Let me dance to the beat of the lies I've been told about everything until God decides to change the song.
Writing about the world is how I make it smaller. It’s how I grab hold of everything around me and force things to become nothing but subjects in my stories. People, places, truths, they’re all props here. After swimming beneath the waves of my new rhythms of life, this is me coming up to breathe, for only a moment. I managed to squeeze an entire piece into my break between classes.
Told by: Kwon
