DO YOU SEE ME

To the reader who scrolls through without a second thought; the moviegoer whose eyes stay glued to the screen and leaves as soon as the credits begin to roll; and the keyboard warrior who only has unwanted opinions but thinks the world needs your input.

Please just stop for a moment. Pause and hear me out.

I’ve been writing for more than half of my life. Pouring out my heart and soul into this canvas filled with words and emotions that grip the soul. There have so many hours spent glued to a screen searching for the reason why. I’ve been broken and bruised, thrown across the room all because no one sees me. No one ever sees the writer.

But alas I am guilty too.

How many times have I scrolled through a thoughtfully written caption on Instagram? Or ran out of the cinema the moment the movie ends? Or pretended to have an opinion about something I couldn’t give two shits about in the name of sounding clever.

In the last 13 years of my life, I have grown into the writer that I am today. Yet there is overwhelming frustration of no one appreciating my work. I spent two hours this week ranting about it to my boyfriend and he said, “why don’t you do something about it?”

This is my doing something about it.

Who am I writing for?
What is my why?

Behind the things that you love is a writer who isn’t noticed for what they do. But they do it anyway because as a writer, I can tell you that if it’s in your bones. You live and you die with it. You will be frustrated but every morning you wake up and all you can think about is how you can change the world one alphabet at a time.

When you watch a movie or a video with a thoughtfully written script, the first thing that comes to your mind is how brilliant the director was — not the scriptwriter who spent hours reiterating the line until it reaches the peak of perfection.

When you look at an advertisement with a beautiful message of hope (just an example, but I’m on a roll here), you’d never think twice about the person who wrote that punchline.

It just doesn’t happen because writers are the invisible souls that bring life to dry bones. They capture you and they take your breath away. They take you on wild adventures that you could never imagine and bring you on magic carpet rides of great heights.

Do you see them?
Silently, oh so silently, putting a pen on paper. Scribbling their thoughts and filling up the pages with the next big idea?

Do you see them?
Tapping and tapping. Intently staring at the screen and creating genius at their fingertips?

Do you see them?
Imagining the next great film that would win an Oscar?

Do you see them?
Telling their story on a platform that only gets visual validation day in and day out?

Do you see them?
Do you see me?

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