There’s something about words that I love.
By: Cristal Hernandez
Tags: Words, Freewriting, Late Night

There’s something about words that I love. The way they string together in a song or pull you into the pages of their books. Or maybe it’s not the words but the life. The ideas come alive. From a thought to a story. A room full of colors and textures and people. A thought to a feeling. I used to say it was music. Driving alone in my car letting myself drown in the wave of emotions brought on by the heartache in a song. But it was more.

I watched a mini series recently. A murder. A mystery. I let myself in six short episodes get seduced by the main character. I found myself going against my better judgement at times, knowing what I knew but still… questioning. When it ended and all the pieces came together I realized my palms were sweaty. It was late but I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about the story. The lie. My heart was pumping with adrenaline. I mean who could sleep after a masterpiece like that? Well besides Jessica who was already stretching and asking if we should go to bed now. I followed her in and laid on the bed but I knew it would be a while before I could come off the high I felt. I decided to listen to the audiobook I had started a few days earlier. It took me a minute to see the picture clearly in my mind as the narrator described the secluded cellar where the missing girl was held. For whatever reason when I closed my eyes I saw an open book as I tried to read along in my mind. It was over. I felt myself almost mouth the words I knew were coming. I smiled to myself as the narrator continued on to the publishing date and copyright. Now I really couldn’t sleep. I felt, emotional. Holding back tears. It wasn’t an emotional ending but it was as if the experience itself of finishing the book was idk…overwhelming? I got up to pee. An excuse I felt I needed to give myself for whatever reason. Anything to get out of bed. Sitting there in the dark replaying back the scenes in my head, the ending I didn’t know I needed, I saw something for the first time. A vision board I had made about a year back was staring at me. That white poster board filled with small quotes and inspirational pictures now looked like…a face. Was that intentional? How had I never noticed that before? It was so clear now in the dark. I couldn’t make out any of the words, or the pictures to be honest. Just the shapes. The contrast of the colorful images against the bright white background. It was a face. I saw the eyes, the lips, I could swear I saw a pupil for Gods sake! How was this possible? Had I really not seen this before? Did my subconscious do it? Across what would be the forehead of my mysterious character I saw a word. In the shape of a rectangle across this face, my face, read CAN’T. So big it took up the entire width of the forehead. Almost like eyebrows. CAN’T. I’ve been staring at this board for months. Reading the words to myself almost like a mantra. Now all I saw were eyes, lips, and the words that seemed to be printed across my own forehead. I turned the board around exposing a clean white slate. My first thought was to throw it away. Maybe make another one. But I left it up instead. I curled up on the couch, opened up my email and started to type. Idk there’s just something about words.