How do you define passion? Is it “An intense, driving, or overmastering feeling beyond control”, as stated in Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary? By its dog-eared corners, crinkly thin pages, and boundless rows of yellowed context, I suppose it is far more experienced in providing appropriate answers than I will ever be. But, despite the sageness of the weighty book, I feel obliged to define the word aversely.

Passion, to me, has hundreds of meanings. It’s something placed first in your life. It is the longing for something that you admire nearly every second of every day. Passion is willing to give the world for whatever it is you love. And passion is pushing something beyond its furthermost extent to relieve the struggle of finding what you have been searching for all along. Living in my “Wonderland”, passion is literature. It is the forty-seven lines influenced by the thin ray of sunlight beaming down on the worn carpet in your living room, and the paragraph regarding the flawless glistening raindrops nestled between the thin strings of a lonely spiderweb. It’s the deep pain and combat felt in the darkest depths of my soul, fixed into words suited to their disposition.

It’s always time consuming, writing. It took me 17 minutes and 21 seconds, timed, to determine the first sentence of this very paper. Write. Observe. I don’t like it. Erase. Write. Nod. Wait, that sounds too robotic. Erase. Write. Squint. I think this is the one. Yes. This is the one... ugh no, wait... And the process continues, until suddenly, inspiration hits. She tends to come in waves, almost like a strong case of hiccups. She is triggered by, seemingly, nothing. As I see her approach I reach out endeavoring to grasp her, quickly. I feel her desperately try to extricate herself, but I keep hold and deeply lodge her inside of my thoughts for as long as I possibly can. I frantically search for the words in unity with her thoughts and express them trying not to become distracted by the obstreperous sound of the graphite on my paper, that will soon be smeared by the hypothenar aspect of my left hand. The words come fluently and with effortless grace and the rest of the universe seems to drown out into nothing but the fuzzy haze of a low, soft melody of an old piano that I automatically tune into. The extremities of my fingers tingle as I rush myself to absorb the words being whispered into my ears. Goosebumps begin to boil on my skin while I feel the ghostlike songs flow through my cerebrum. I lean back and think about these new ideas on the paper lying before me, and as I stare at myself in deep thought through the looking glass directly parallel to me, I notice my pupils fiercely dilating. Seeing this, I know that I have found the sentences that I need- the closest thing to perfection that I may ever know.

As I look back down at the, now shabby and partially ripped page in front of me, I realize at once that the whispers are faded and I am alone. I wait a few seconds, tossing around words in my head like a hot potato, but for what seems like hours, everyone that it is pitched to seems to loose their grip, and as it lands in the goo of my exasperated mind it burns for long moments until the steaming root slides down into the abyss. This is the nuisance that takes place every time that I attempt to compose something exquisite and satisfactory to my needs. A struggling writer, I suppose, is the phrase that defines me. Always on the borderline of defeat and striving to clasp the oily tip of the single rock protruding from the edge of a rim, and straining to rise up out of the desolate valley that lay below me. But at the same time, it is in direct contrast with a struggle. It is why I open fatigued eyes each morning and it is my way of feeling belonging. It is the fulfilling conquering emotion that violently rushes through my veins like electricity. It’s the beauty of happiness brought to surface from the simplicity found in words on a paper. It is what I am truly proud of and my sole purpose. Writing, is my passion.