The Words That Find Me

I’ve never understood why my best writing comes when I’m hurting. Not little irritations, not fleeting annoyances, but the kind of pain that sits heavy in your chest and refuses to leave.

Yesterday, for example, I’d gotten into it with someone over something trivial, and for hours afterward, I just sat in my chair, staring at the wall.

“Tom, are you even listening to me?” the person had said, voice tight with frustration.

“I am,” I lied.

I wasn’t. My mind had already wandered into that familiar place where anger and disappointment fold together like paper cranes, sharp edges pressing into you.

When she left, I stayed there, silent, the house thick with echoes. And then, I opened my laptop.

It’s funny how pain works. You don’t have to force it; it finds its way to you.

And when it does, the words come like a flood. I typed sentences I didn’t even know were hiding in me, lines I couldn’t have written when I was laughing over coffee or walking Buddy down the trail.

Pain makes you write honestly, makes you cut through pretense.

The first line I typed was jagged, barely coherent: Anger smells like burnt toast and old regrets. I paused, reread it, and chuckled softly.

Yeah, that made sense. That’s the thing about writing from pain.

It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else. It only has to make sense to you.

A few hours later, my friend Jim called.

“You sound like hell,” he said.

“Feels like it too,” I admitted. “But somehow, I’m writing. And it’s good. Don’t ask me why.”

“I’ll ask anyway,” he said. “Why does it have to be pain?”

I shrugged, though he couldn’t see it. “Maybe it’s because pain refuses distraction. It doesn’t let you drift. It presses you into your own skin until you notice the details you usually ignore. You feel too much to lie.”

He was quiet for a moment. “Sounds exhausting.”

“It is. But it’s worth it. Because when I’m not hurting, the words are there, but they’re polite. Safe. Pain gives them teeth.”

By the time I hung up, the room was dark. The words on the screen were jagged, raw, sometimes ugly, sometimes beautiful.

I leaned back and looked at them, feeling that strange mix of satisfaction and exhaustion. Pain had walked me into the room, uninvited, and left me with these words as a gift.

I don’t chase it. I never have.

But when it finds me, I don’t fight it either. I write.

And in those hours, I understand why the hurt comes: not to break me, but to make the words bleed.