Writing as a Form of Escape

By: Rachel Franklin

They say I write to escape

That I let the words flow like droplets of water

Swept along in a strong current

Tumbling

Gushing

To get away.

I wonder what I am escaping from.

Why I sit here for so long,

Holding onto the words

As if they were more than letters

Written

On paper.

As if they could take me away.

They say that I write my pain

Into non-existent people’s lives,

Their agony all too familiar,

Their tears,

My tears,

To numb that pain.

I wonder how exactly it numbs the pain,

Why I continue writing other’s lives,

Until the waterfall of words

Crashes down

And cascades

Over my reality.

I do not write to get away.

I write to bind the chains

Around my hands

Until

I cannot tell

Which world I am escaping from

And which one is fiction.