writing for writing's sake

sometimes you just have to write - forge ahead, push through the barriers, and write. i have had serious mind block lately - life has been quiet, and i felt like there was nothing to write about. which wasn't in fact true. it's funny how our minds rely so much on what is happening, and what the weather is, and who we are seeing to get inspiration to write, but sometimes, we have to look to ourselves, and just write about anything. write about ideas. write about what's in our minds, and what has been tattooed on our hearts. write about dreams, write about errors, take something ordinary, and bind it with an idea, take it in your hands, and mold it with the ghost of dreams, and the intangible reality of life.

people. people are the denominator - the factor that never changes, and always changes. write about people. write about the strangers on the street - the man who always wears that green coat with the hole in the elbow, no matter the temperature. the lady at the checkout who never smiles, who's eyes are tainted with bitterness and kissed by tears. they whisper, 'the world owes me'. the waitress who looks into the eyes of everyone she meets, as if she wishes she could dive into their depths and retrieve what she's been missing. the hungry look on her face as she waits for lips to curve upwards - as she waits for someone to see her as someone more than what she is. to see who she is.

people are both the simplest, and the most complex beings to understand. the way different hearts deal with grief, with anger, with love, or hate. how hate and love can dwell side by side on shelves dusty with fragmented expectations. how tears are combined in both joy, and pain. i have tried to figure people out - watching, listening, wondering. understand one, understand all. it doesn't work like that. i'll never understand people. i don't think i'll never understand myself, fully. we try so hard to understand. to relate, to hold pieces of who they are in our hands, so we feel as if we are connecting.

but maybe, despite most belief, people don't need to be merely understood - maybe people don't need words. maybe they need someone to listen. people are broken - everyone you see has cracks, scars, failures they've hidden, and pain they don't realize exists - perhaps they've become numb. you'll never fully understand the way their mind works, and you don't need to. learn to notice the unspoken, and see past the masks. more than being understood, sometimes, all people need is to be loved.