Sickness is a strange thing, like an all consuming flame it burns up all that it can.
Relationships, dreams, ideas you had about yourself.
All that can be burned is lost to its flames.
Which begs the question what remains?
If anything.
Now I know the answer to this question that has trouble than tormented me through so many sweat soaked sleepless nights.
What remains is the glitter and gold that shines from within the belly of a crucible.
It is the refinement of all that you are without decoration or distraction.
So what am I when all else is consumed by the flames?
What remains of me?
I am a writer.
And what remains are my words.
I could call myself a musician but it would not be so.
For some days I am too weak to pick up my guitar, and if the guitar had to be burned for warmth would I also cease to exist?
No
The sounds that ring out from my guitar are simply lines on invisible paper that my words fall upon.
The sounds give context to my words, what they do not do is give them purpose.
For the words carry their own weight.
They rely on nothing, and need for nothing.
Some days I am too weak to pick up my guitar, my voice to burdened to sing, but never do I struggle to lift this pen that rests betwixt my fingers and even if a day should come where my hands tremble so and my oldest companion slips from my grip, the words will remain.
Perhaps unspoken, but alive still.
For I am a writer and forever will be.
When my body meets the cold earth my life's story shall mingle with the dirt.
The very dirt I was formed from and belong to.
For I know this body is borrowed and not to be bargained for.
I accept my undoing with open arms and fear not the end of a well told tale.
A writer has nothing to fear of death, for when all is said and done the word shall remain.
For in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.