"When
a writer falls in love with you, you become immortal.
When a writer falls in love with
you, you become the unwitting inspiration of a whole mess of spilled ink. You
become all nine muses to a lone typewriter.
You become the lyrics to a melody, the syllables of iambic pentameter,
the plotline of a fantastic adventure. One day you will be reading and you will
find yourself trapped in the middle of pages. When a writer falls in love with
you, you will find yourself in lives you never lived and characters you never
knew. The writer won't always intend for
you to be there, but you will find yourself in the little things... a
background character with a similar lisp, familiar flecks of green in the eyes
of a hero, a stupid joke you once told now immortalized in ink. The ring you always wear on the middle finger
of your right hand will suddenly appear on a character who shares no physical
attributes with you-- but you are there in the subtleties. You'll discover
yourself in narrators and scapegoats and irrelevant side-characters: all
characters who aren't you, but whose hair bears an incredible likeness to
yours, or who love the same absurd Swedish rap band, or who cry at the same old
Disney movie, or whose third tooth is chipped just like yours. Sometimes you
will find yourself blushing at an obvious reveal-- a love interest that could
not bear more likeness to yourself, or a poem that so directly describes your
situation that you can't help but assume, or a character that sounds like you
except a thousand times better than you ever thought of yourself. Other times,
you won't even recognize the subtle characteristics that relate this character
to the love the author feels for you.
You see, when a writer falls in
love with you, their words will reveal you in ways you had never imagined
yourself. When a writer falls in love with you, you may sometimes find yourself
at the end of a loaded pen; you may find yourself holding a piece of paper on
which your writer has inscribed the universe in a few lines. You may find
yourself with words that overwhelm you. If a writer truly falls for you, you
may become the unknowing recipient of hidden love letters composed of stars and
light. You may even be lucky enough to be the knowing recipient of a love
letter in which you are painted in shades of sky. The writer won't intend to
make you so visionary, but they won't really be able to help it, because
suddenly the words they treasure so dearly cease to be enough. They'll write to
you and about you, over and over-- on pages full of scribbles and crossed out
lines, because in their minds, they will be repeatedly failing to do you
justice.
If a writer falls in love with you,
they will begin to see you everywhere.
There will be obvious comparisons in the writer's mind between the two
of you and the couples in every book read and movie watched. But more than that, your writer will start to
find you in day to day moments. You will be thought of as autumn leaves are
gently lifted into the wind. You will be remembered in cool breezes on hot
summer days and warm fires on cold winter evenings. To the writer that cares,
your laugh will be present in the pitter-patter of spring rain on dry earth.
You will be remembered likewise as the ribbon of the typewriter spins. The
front of the mind, the tip of the pen-- that's where you will be. Even if your
place in the life of a writer is ephemeral, if you are loved, you are
eternal. When a writer loves you, they
cannot help but write about you as they discover you in the universe around
them.
When a writer loves you, you can never
die, because long after you are gone, those words will remain, and in them,
you-- immortalized in ink."
Repost from The Memories of a Gemini:
