How the Pages Got Quiet

"Notes on Losing and Finding a Voice."

I used to write on everything. Bus tickets, lab handouts, and the backs of receipts were my canvas. I even wrote on the tender skin of my palms when I had no paper available. By night, the ink bled faint blue ghosts onto my sheets. By morning, each mark felt like proof that stories wanted to escape. I never rushed those stories. I allowed the verses to breathe for weeks, trusting that silence and time would season them.

I did not mean to stop writing. My words slowed down and the pages grew quiet.

Back then, sentences were like portals. A crumpled receipt would transport me to a kingdom where I ruled with an ink-smudged fist. The margin of a notebook became the cockpit of an intergalactic cruiser. A sticky note allowed me to drift like a butterfly in warm wind. With pen and paper, nothing was beyond my reach. My imagination was my most reliable compass, until one day, I looked up and found only blank pages.

I did not mean to stop writing. My words slowed down and the pages grew quiet.

College was meant to refine my skills. Instead, I encountered strict rubrics, harsh red ink, and classrooms where creativity struggled for attention. I still remember the first blow. A professor circled my favorite metaphor in bright red ink and wrote “irrelevant” next to it. My paragraph was dissected under the harsh fluorescent lights while the room debated its flaws. While feedback isn’t the enemy, the way it was delivered made my words tremble. With each critique, my imagination retreated further into hiding.

I did not mean to stop writing. My words slowed down and the pages grew quiet.

Before long, I found myself writing solely to satisfy my professors and meet deadlines. What used to be a playground for creativity turned into a mere checkpoint. The vibrant swirl of phrases that once danced in my mind was replaced by a dull wall of emptiness. I lost my voice along the way, and with it, a part of myself.

I did not mean to stop writing. My words slowed down and the pages grew quiet.

Yesterday, while cleaning, I found a pocket‑sized notebook wedged behind my dresser. Half a poem in my handwriting blooming across its first page. I sat down and let the quiet listen. Distance, it turns out, can sharpen longing. I miss the girl who pulled galaxies from cheap pens. This post is my first step back to her. One word at a time, I’ll water the imagination I abandoned and watch for new shoots. Maybe it will return stronger, ready to share stories richer for their season underground.

This is an oath to my younger self: we will not stay silent.

I’m not announcing a comeback. I’m simply whispering into the quiet that I’m still here.