The Year I Forgot My Voice, and Found It on the Page

The Year I Forgot My Voice, and Found It on the Page

by Habib

January 3

I sat at my desk for hours, pen in hand, eyes fixed on the blank page like it might blink first. It didn’t. Neither did I. Writing used to come as naturally as breathing. Now, it feels like I’m suffocating under the weight of everything I haven’t said.

I whisper a sentence to myself. It falls flat. The words sound hollow, like a voice heard through walls. I’m not sure it’s mine anymore.

February 10

I skipped another writers’ meeting. Told them I had the flu. In truth, I just couldn’t bear to hear people talk about “flow” and “word counts” when I was still stuck on a blinking cursor. The silence is loud. Too loud.

My notebook is beginning to feel like a graveyard — pages waiting for something to die or be buried.

March 28

I cleaned out a drawer today. Found old journals from my teenage years. Every page screamed, “Listen to me.” Even when I wrote badly, I wrote boldly. Where did that girl go?

I wonder if your voice can get lost in a crowded room — of expectations, deadlines, followers, filters. I wonder if it can suffocate under its own desire to be liked instead of understood.

April 9

I stopped writing altogether.

Instead, I made tea. I went on walks. I listened to the sound of the wind pressing against trees like it had something urgent to say. For the first time in months, I felt something shift. Maybe rest is a kind of writing, too — a quiet letter to the self.

May 1

I had a dream where my words were birds — bright, fluttering things that nested in my chest. In the dream, I tried to sing, but when I opened my mouth, ash fell out.

When I woke up, I wrote a line:

“Some silences are scarred with noise.”

Just that. One line. It felt like a heartbeat returning after a long winter.

June 16

I wrote three pages today. They weren’t good. But they were mine.

They told the story of a woman made of glass. How she cracked under pressure, refracted the world through her pain. How no one could touch her without seeing themselves, and it hurt — but it healed, too.

Maybe I’m not writing stories. Maybe I’m writing survival.

July 20

I opened my inbox to an old friend’s message: “I miss your words. You used to write like your soul had a secret.”

I cried for twenty minutes. Then I wrote a poem that didn’t rhyme, didn’t follow rules, didn’t care.

It was a letter to myself:

You are still here, even when your voice trembles. You are still whole, even in pieces. You are still a writer, even when you’re not writing.

August 31

There’s something sacred about writing when no one’s watching. I’ve stopped thinking about whether anyone will like it. Instead, I wonder: Does it feel true? If yes, I keep going.

My voice isn’t loud again yet, but it’s clearer. Softer, sure — but also deeper.

October 5

I shared a short piece online — just a few hundred words about walking through grief like it’s an unfamiliar city. Strangers messaged me. “This is what I needed,” one said. “This made me feel less alone.”

Maybe that’s all writing really is — a way to hold hands through paper.

November 12

The metaphor came to me while cooking:

Burnout is like boiling water in a closed pot. If you don’t lift the lid, it overflows or explodes.

Writing lifts the lid. Writing lets out the steam.

December 31

It’s the end of the year. I have a folder full of small things: broken poems, character sketches, unfinished essays. No bestsellers. No awards. But they feel alive. Like seedlings, waiting for spring.

I used to think I had lost my voice. But really, I had been listening for someone else’s.

Now, I’m writing in my own tongue again.

It’s quieter. But it sings.

It’s slower. But it stays.

Postscript

Some years you write the book.

Some years, the book writes you.

This year, I became the page.

And slowly — word by word — I found my voice on it.