You’ll piss someone off, inevitably.

They’ll paint you into a corner, saying your words suck or that you don’t get it.

It’s then that the feeling in your soul will be like walking across a bed of coals, or a thousand needles inflicted across your body.

It’ll make you want to crawl into a fetal position and do nothing. Give up the pen. Throw the typewriter out the window.

And yet, you are a writer. Words comfort you, and the simple act of writing calms your soul, as well as awakens your fire.

Yes, you tell yourself, “I am not a piece of stone carved into a sculpture—stuck in one position. I am fluid. Ever-changing.”

You stare at your reflection in the mirror, thinking about how each new word builds upon another word, which brings the world alive, so you smile. You’ve learned to see that you are always in motion with writing.

It’s not static. It’s alive, and so are you.

You don’t have to buy into the critique of someone’s contempt. Sure, you can take an awareness from their opinions, because maybe there is one thing to learn in their discerning words that they yell across the page, telling you that you suck.

That one thing to learn is that you have a writer’s skin.

Smooth and gorgeous. True, it occasionally gets scaly when you’re too busy to slather lavender-coconut lotion on it, but it’s your skin.

A writer’s skin that glows, and shows your strength in the scars, tattoos and words etched across it.

It’s not easy to wear your skin when others want to rip it off, but you must remember that you deserve to feel the things that you feel. That you must write what is true for you. That sometimes, the words will morph into new words that’ll carry you to other places in the world, and their intention may be misconstrued or they may inspire kindred spirit.

But, most importantly, that gorgeous skin belongs to you, and don’t you ever let another try to imprint their scars upon your flesh. Wear your skin with your words—proudly.

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Author: Jessie Wright

Editor: Toby Israel

Image: Pixabay // Pixabay

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