Words

A prose that I wrote during a 15-minute session in my Gotham Writing write-in.

Words have always had a way of finding me, long before I knew what to do with them.

They showed up in the quiet places where life felt too heavy to carry alone, and in the louder moments when I needed somewhere to set the truth down before it slipped away.

For a long time, I believed words belonged to people braver than me. The ones who seemed born knowing how to speak up, how to claim space, how to stand in a room without shrinking.

But life has a way of teaching you things slowly. One of the things it taught me is that words don’t really ask for permission. They rise when they need to. They move when something inside you refuses to stay quiet.

And sometimes they come looking for us when we finally get tired of pretending we have nothing to say.

Words have carried me through heartbreak and through healing. Through seasons where I felt like I was rebuilding myself piece by tender piece. They held the parts of me I once thought were too small, too loud, or somehow not enough.

And every time I wrote something down, it felt a little like choosing myself again.
Hope over fear. Honesty over silence. Showing up, even on the days when disappearing might have felt easier.

So if you are here, wondering whether your story matters or whether your voice is strong enough, I hope you hear this clearly.

Your words are already doing the work.

They whisper courage before you even speak. They turn small moments into meaning. They take the weight of your pain and shape it into something you can hold without breaking.

You don’t have to shout, and you don’t have to be perfect.
Just tell the truth in the way only you can.

Because somewhere out there, someone is waiting to read a sentence that sounds like them. Written by someone who finally understood that words are not just something we say.

They are how we rise.

by Andrea Prescott
https://www.amazon.com/author/andrea.prescott