Dedication

Before she came along, he wondered why he was writing in the first place.

It started off as an experiment. He wanted to be a novelist. He wanted to build worlds of fantasy using the expansive set of tools he had at his disposal, having read libraries of books, but never enough. When he put those words onto paper, they twisted and turned, gnawing at the structure he thought they deserved, they rebelled and he let it fester. When the fight was done and the dust settled, he didn't write much, but he had said so much.

Before she came along, he wondered where his writing would take him.

Lines were uncaring of the rules he thought they had to follow, and he loved it. Every story seemed to breathe a new version of the truth, because that was what it was, a perspective of truth. His writing slowly started to unravel his inner demons, and slowly but surely they started to lay bare his ideas of love, his ideas of pain, his ideas of giving up yet wanting to start again. His heart slowly dusted off its wings and prepared to take flight while during his time away from writing the same heart yearned to beat for someone else.

Before she came along, he wondered who he could write for.

Yet the wings, dusted and feathered, stayed closed. It wasn't the right time just yet. He still wrote, now writing stories about people he loved and cared about, and he felt like this was all as a testament to those people. This didn't necessarily drive him like the passion he'd hoped it'd be; he felt a certain laziness in it, a sort of laid-back approach that he knew was not going help him finish the stretch. Did he want to finish this in the first place? Did he want to write a book?

Before she came along, he wondered where he was going.

The answer came that one night a friend in lands distant told him how a single story saved his life. A single story he wrote about someone else in his life, with the intention of just immortalising a sense of purpose in his life, stopped someone else from pulling the noose over their heads and around their neck. That night, the writer couldn't sleep, couldn't bring him to accept the weight of the responsibility he felt on his shoulders. If one story could save a life of a single person, he might have tapped deep enough into his passion to find the fire. He found something beautiful in his art he had not noticed before, and this gave him the drive he needed. He was going to finish that book.

Before she came along, he wondered if he was good enough.

That was when he started seeing everyone else who seemed to be writing too. Some seemed to garner fame much faster than he thought possible, some work seemingly mundane ad half hearted seemed to be the best thing for people around him. This halted his progress; what if people didn’t like his writing? What if his books didn’t sell? What if the reviewers were so harsh on his work that publishers decided to stay away from him? Reality hit him like a train derailing, the tracks to his future goals seemed further and further off course. Nights were hard to get by, days were harder to write during. That was when she walked in.

Before she came along, he wondered how long his fires would burn.

She fanned his flames again, breathing new life into his soul with words of encouragement, lifting his chin when all he wanted to do was give up and stop even before he started. He finally looked her in the eye and found a spark, a flash of lightning that hit him right at the core, at once firing up a string of stories he wanted to write about her. Anything to make her smile, he began again, putting pen to paper, fingers on his keyboard, making his words paint the pictures their love created, still frames of his favourite movie starring the both of them. He found a blissful need to keep making his art.

After she came along, he found answers for questions that were never asked before.

The morning after she left, he felt numb. Words seemed to come easy, he managed to say what he wanted to say but passion’s flame turned blue. He felt cold, alone and stranded, yet he knew his goals, he knew how to get there. She taught him so much about himself he never knew, about the world he never saw even though he was busy living in it, about his writing he never managed to read between the lines. it was never the same again, a long winding road that seemed to blend with the bushes that lined it. Here he got lost. When solitude finally crawled over him, it brought with it an answer. He knew his writing, his poetry and his need to express in words were akin to prayers, a need to be heard and remembered and a wishing for a happier tomorrow.

After she left him, he knew this book was going to be for her.

It started off as an experiment. He wanted to be famous but that quickly faded. He wanted to write about people he loved and cared for but that became a characteristic of his writing, not a goal. He wanted to save lives, and even that became a part of his writing, not a goal. No, now he knew the book was going to be not just a compilation, not just an expression, not just a contemplation of life and it’s various truths. This was going to be a dedication.

Maybe she would love him again.

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