The Roughest Draft

by Emily Wibberley

was it romantic when you instinctively knew someone’s very existence fascinated you, made you grateful? Finding it romantic would be missing the point, like valuing the sun because it was bright. I’m glad for the light, but really, I’m grateful for the fact it sustains life on Earth.

I’ve heard people compare fights to fire. It’s the wrong metaphor. Flames flourish with space, openness, room to breathe, kindling to feed them. Fights come from the opposite—from pressure, restraint, deprivation.

“Forever is about reaching into the future, into years far away and unknowable. ‘Always’ is about every second of every day. It’s as far-reaching as ‘forever,’ it just starts sooner.” His eyes have fixed on mine. “The word is immediate and immortal. And better.”

Wasn’t this inevitable? We’ve served the sentence for a crime we never committed. Why shouldn’t we commit it now? There are no possible consequences left.

Writing is where our—where everyone’s—purest truths lie. On the page, thoughts and feelings can be expressed without interference, without ineloquences or fear or fumbling. There’s no room for turning back or losing your nerve. Only one thing remains—what you want to communicate.

Fiction comes from truth. It is a wonderful, imaginative, flourishing thing grown from a seed of real feelings, real desires, real fears. No artist ever creates from nothing. We work from what we’ve experienced, inspired by the unique piece of the world we see. It’s why art cannot be replicated.

I learned sometimes relationships don’t die. They just don’t grow. Kept from sunlight, from nourishment, they never flourish.

Never leaving someone isn’t the same as loving them.