Writer’s Intuition
It has eaten, it has gnawed, it has wormed its way inside my gut. Writer’s intuition tells me to turn it into a story – and I really want to – but must I feed off my own grievances? Aristotle must be spouting about damned virtue ethics somewhere deep within my ribs because I feel I must grab my chest every time I watch the room around me.
Does anyone else notice that immense pressure and static filling the air? No one else is bothered by all this bodhrú?
I find myself again begging to crawl into the folds and cracks, wishing every nook and cranny for fae were also for me. It is true, I host this sensation – this experience – that can only be described as rising sea levels, a complete burning of the head, and the fervent desire dul gealtachais.
Really, no voice whispering question after question after question?
Not even a beag one?
Editing my resume still consists of wondering if adding “writer since birth” still counts, and where “not-quite-prodigy-but-definitely-burnout” would fit. I still barely call myself a writer, let alone a storyteller or lover of all literature. Maybe it is the weight of béarla, or my love-hate relationship with nuatheanga, or even simply the spoken word. All these years, tears, and dianghrá spent fuelling this illicit entanglement; I will always come back to be that kid reading late at night from the moonlight seeping under my bedroom door.
Does language love me back?
Am I translating this all correctly?
Every memory, moment, emotion, all wrapped inside printed typography and dramhpháipéar; just for a second, I believe in fate and feel how my future is carved out before me. Every fibre of me stirs – beiriú – and hopes that at the end of it I am able to write still.
Written by Jasper Brady.
Jasper is a writer through and through, often found scrambling for the difference between genitive singular and nominative in Gaeilge. All is well, he will find it and continue to spiral further down language journalism and zine-making. On IG and Substack as @seasparo.