It's not only my pen, these hands are a gift.

The question was why do you write, and the answer for many of us within our culture is because our hands blessed us with the gift to write. For some it's a tool to get to the other side of the pain.

It seems like the people who ask why I write are the ones looking to pick up the pen themselves. They ask me how I am able to write with so much vulnerability, and how I am not afraid to share my story no matter if the other characters are presented in a negative light. My response explains how the process of writing mirrors the process of removing our clothes.

That vulnerable moment standing in front of the mirror completely naked before getting in the shower is how it feels when I hit the publish button. However, the warmth you feel from the water touches your skin is the feeling when someone resonates with my words. Leaving me to feel seen, heard, and understood.

I write to learn about myself, to take long looks past the surface into the depths of my soul. Who I am as a person is discovered through my writing. The many layers that make me who I am are peeled back the more I flip through the pages of me.

The more I read the work of this community, the more I realize we are all writing sometimes for the same reasons. Our pen found us when we needed to find our voice which is why sharing it feels uncomfortable. However, the more we show up — the more we find comfort in the community we’ve built for ourselves.

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Chicken Scratch

Makéila NéVette

Ever since I was a little girl, I've known that my Ma's hands are the most beautiful ones I've ever seen.

As a little girl I would stare at her hands in admiration of just how large they were. Ma doesn't have small hands, they are large, solid, heavy, and thick. I was convinced early on that God must've etched out her hands in a southern live oak, for each wrinkle and stretch of skin mimicked its rungs, each rung holding a story she needed to hold close for safekeeping. She's never had a need for delicate fingers, she has the hands of a woman who has lived much life.

South Carolina hands.

Lowcountry hands.

Sharecropping hands.

They always swallowed my small ones when our hand enveloped each other’s, each of my fingers tightly squeezed between each of hers, something I found comical for much of my adolescence.

Over the years I watched her hands in the kitchen: cracking open pecans, picking up pork rinds, flipping hot water cornbread, handing me a glass of sweet tea. I watch her hands in her garden, picking plump tomatoes off of the vines, snatching peppers and okra from their stems, ripping up weeds and patting the soil down by her sunflowers. I’ve watched her wipe sweat off of her brows in the hot Savannah sun, fan herself on the last pew in the back of the church, roll curlers into her hair. Seen her fingers in scalps, on stoves, on communion trays, eating her favorite foods. But my favorite has always been watching her write.

I've always loved watching her write, loved the way her pens always scratched at the page perfectly, the careless way her wrist flicked at the ending letter of each word she wrote, as if she needed to punctuate each and every one.

And as discreet as I tried to be, Ma always knew when I was watching. Our eyes would meet and she would ask “you watchin me write?”, but she would never hold my gaze then, instead would call her handwriting “chicken scratch” and laugh in quick, easy breaths, her voice whistling slightly at the end.

My admiration for Ma extended far beyond watching her hands move through the world, it has always been for who she is. She has always been the matriarch of the family, a sturdy oak amidst brutal winds, branches agile enough to sway because ebbing and flowing made existing much easier than resisting the tides and winds. 

She is our Sun. Our epicenter. Our griot. The woman who tells the oral records of our family history.

She is the one who first named my ancestors for me. And because of that I write.

But with as many names and stories that she could remember I’ve never seen her write any down. Everything was recorded in the recesses of her mind. Many times I’ve tried to record snippets, grab scrap pieces of paper here and there and tuck it in my wallet so that I won’t lose it. But it has never been enough. There is always a yearning for more, something tangible that I can hold. Over the years I became wary of what she carried, for I do not want her stories to pass with her; I need them to exist in the physical beyond her own mind. How can one ask for something without having an offering prepared in appreciation? I have nothing more to give, other than my pen. For that, I have chosen to bear such a responsibility to become our record keeper. That is my offering to her. To grant her the space to share what she herself has been carrying for so long.

But something in my spirit tells me that I am not yet ready. That there is much more living and writing to do, and I won't understand that importance of either until that time comes. There is more to be translated to paper than just names and dates: will I be ready to record Ma's burdens? Will my pen be swift enough to record every inflection, breath, pause, restriction and release that exist within the folds of her stories? What is to be written is neither insignificant nor to be belittled, it is my family's Bible. I need to be stronger, more aware of the page. When it is time to write these records, it is not the opportunity for me to lay my burdens down. I am encapsulating the very existence of my ancestors on paper; I must honor them in the way they need to be honored.

And with an offering as great as that, I must also take full responsibility for my relationship with my own words.

For many years I believed my words were only worthy of being on a page, tucked away, hidden from the world. I grew up hiding diaries under mattresses, journals in the back of closets, and notebooks at the bottom of drawers no one would dare to look. Sharing felt too vulnerable, as if someone could read one sentence and peer into me like I was made of glass, and every thought pulsed through me like blood in my veins. And many times, my words were read without my consent, only to later be spit back to me in a much more twisted, incongruent way. My words in other mouths sounded tainted and for that I hid them. To be unseen was much better than to be purposefully misunderstood and attacked for projected biases. I believed my words were only to exist in me, only to be heard as I rummaged through my own thoughts, and that they held far less weight than the anticipated judgement from the perusal of my pages held.

As I’ve grown I’ve come to realize that my words were never only seen by me anyways. I began to recognize my ancestors peering over my shoulder, gentle nudges to “get it out” so that I could lay down my own crosses. Many of my pages have become altars, both for the living and the dead, both for others and for myself. Looking back I realize now that nudging was a part of my cultivation as a writer, to prepare to be our record keeper. How am I to take on such a responsibility when I so carelessly throw my own words to the wayside? Are my own words worth nothing to me? Ain’t I worth seeing too?

But in that sight lies a certain responsibility to oneself. Abandoning my most personal sentiments? I knew better than that. I could try to fool myself but it was a childish endeavor. My self-awareness was far too great to allow myself to take part in such foolishness. My spirit will no longer allow me to walk around with a swollen mind, itching to let go of what it feels it’s no longer meant to carry. 

Such a spiritual thing, writing is. What a gift it is to be able to say so much without needing to open your mouth. No need to worry about curling tongues and stuffy throats. Shame is a useless thing when you need to release; there is no sin to be held for marking yourself on pages that may never see you again.There is no sin in writing what needs to come out, only in strikin through your words before you have a chance to get them on the paper.

My Ma taught me that. That on the other side of fear is freedom. That I must find liberation in sharing what I write, for words are never meant to be carried by one singular soul.

Words are meant to be living things. They’re meant to exist in tandem with our breath, our being. How can they live if I seek so desperately to separate my being from my words? If I kill the spirit of the thing before I can breathe life into it, what’s the point anyway? If there is no confidence in what I can put on paper for myself then there must not be any for what I put on paper for my folks. Confidence requires balance and accountability, and without both I remain unworthy of taking on such a great responsibility.

There are stories I carry deep within my spirit that feel too painful to release and allow to exist outside of my throat. The words taste like acid, something putrid, and my wrist burns when I work to write them down. There are stories I don’t even have words for yet, but I know are waiting, dormant, for me to find the language necessary to convey it to the page. And the only person who could ever truly soothe the thrumming of those stories was my Ma, when my hand and arms were tucked around hers.

When I look at Ma I see all her stories swirling in her eyes, some that I know, she too, wished she had the language for. At her age now her spine has begun to shrink, and I wonder what hidden words are etched into each bone, her body curling dwindling slowly under the weight of the responsibility of holding all those words in. I imagine it must be a heavy burden to bear, wanting to share such things but your own tongue holds you back. There are moments I pry, trying to get a story to come forward, but just as soon as I see the curiosity line her face in my fascination for learning, the words seem to retreat back down her throat, and she shakes her head saying certain things are too painful. 

The rungs on her fingers have multiplied. Her hands are still heavy, and thick, but not as heavy and thick as I remember them to be. Her skin has shruken around the bone, her knuckles baring themselves as a declaration of her age. I still watch her write, though the moments are much more scattered. And she still flicks her wrist as the end to punctuate the ending of each word. But I haven’t heard her call her writing chicken scratch in so long that I fear she forgot our inside joke. When she laughs now it comes with a cough, and I gently tap her back, scared that each cough is a story escaping her. I still watch her at any chance I can, still curve my hand into hers and close my eyes to feel like that little girl again. 

She is still my Sun. My griot, though stories don’t come as often. 

And I have slowly begun to accept that her physical form is not permanent. That there will come a day when her hands will be folded gently across her tall frame, and that I will not be able to see her smile in front of me, only be able to leave a kiss on her forehead and pray her spirit travels safely back to me when she’s ready.

I write in reflection of her. Of all the stories caught at the roof of her mouth, because sometimes it’s much too much to say the words aloud, let alone write them down. I write for practice, in hopes that I will have more than enough time to sit down with her one day so that I can write down a record of her life. I write now, so that she can read my words before I have to read them to her as she sits on my altar.

I write because my ancestors tell me to. Because I know that my responsibilities lie not only with learning from my elders, but being able to carry a torch to track our written histories. I bare myself on the page for all my folks who didn’t know how to. 

I write because the very etching of my being began with the words my ancestors craved so deeply to share never got to say. 

I write, so that when I become an ancestor, one of my babies can read my words and breathe their own life into them. They can read our family history, our familial hymnals, and understand the power of their own timbre and falsetto. 

I write because writing is as necessary as my breath. That without it I might just collapse from a swollen spirit.

Most importantly, I write, because I’m not sure there’s anything else for me to do.

I hope that someday, I can sit down with my grandchildren, and they’ll call my handwriting chicken scratch. And that they’ll share those moments of our eyes wrinkling together, and adore the way my wrist flicks at the end of my words. Just like me and my Ma <3

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Editor’s Note: A community member,

Renée Reese

, reached out to me about a new publication she started inspired by reading the book Black Women Writers at Work. Because the magazine is going to have ads included from our sponsors, this felt like the perfect opportunity to connect the community with other members creating safe spaces for us based on our shared unique Black experiences. Many of you have been interested in a discussions around the book and this felt right.

Black Women Writers on Substack

is a community and resource hub for dedicated Black women writers looking to grow on Substack and beyond. We’re kicking things off with Black Women Writers at Work, a series highlighting the craft, careers, and creative lives of Black women writers. Future features will include a curation list of writing opportunities, insider resources, and more ways to support and connect with each other. If you are a Black woman writer on Substack, this space is for you!