finding words that paint

there’s a moment in reading when a phrase, as if by magic, opens a trapdoor into some part of your mind you never knew existed. when i read something truly stunning—a line filled with imagery so vivid, metaphors so lush they practically breathe—i fall into that space. i love how writers can make emotions shimmer, how they bend the simplest phrases into expressions so beautiful, so haunting, that they seem almost alive. but whenever i sit down to try something like this, i feel like an outsider looking in. my words stay flat on the page, stubborn and unyielding, like a sky refusing to rain.

i could blame it on vocabulary, on not knowing the precise, almost ridiculous, but apt words that some writers summon like conjurors. when authors describe feelings and sensations and people in a ridiculously beautiful way, it’s like watching an artist paint with an impossible palette of colours. i read these phrases and wish my sentences had that same mysterious sheen, that quiet echo that stays with the reader long after the page has turned. but my attempts at this kind of beauty feel like trying to fold water into origami.

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sometimes i wonder if it's my mind that resists it. there’s something naturally evocative about life, yet my brain approaches it in straight lines, seeing events as they are, with the literal, clear outline of someone who’d rather explain than evoke. i look at the sky and see blue; a writer like virginia woolf might look up and see a “sorbet of cerulean,” or think of it as a metaphor for a memory half-remembered, shimmering and out of reach. i can describe the sky, yes, but it doesn’t unfurl into a larger idea or bloom with any sort of hidden complexity.

i often wonder if my struggle comes from my tendency to read these kinds of sentences with reverence, as if they’re precious stones behind glass. i absorb them, but somehow never feel like they’re mine to use. reading this kind of writing is like being in an art gallery, appreciating the exquisite brushstrokes and vivid colours of a painting but never feeling quite at home with a brush in my own hand. perhaps i put the language on a pedestal, so high that it intimidates me rather than inspires. or maybe it’s a matter of fear—fear that my attempts to capture that same magic will fall flat, leaving me with sentences that feel like they’re trying too hard to be something they’re not.

i’ve thought about it: is it a question of experience, of not having the right memories to draw from? maybe writers who paint with words have known rare moments of intensity—heartbreaks that tasted like salt on the breeze or happiness that rang like laughter inside an empty hall. they gather experiences like trinkets, polishing them until they’re as bright as an emerald, a ruby, a diamond. but my experiences seem so… simple. they come to me as facts, clear and clean, not complicated or imbued with layers of metaphor.

there’s also something inherently brave about using imagery, as if you’re letting your guard down, baring something in yourself that feels private, maybe even risky. to compare love to “a fragile origami figure crafted out of whispers” or to “the memory of rain evaporating on a long-forgotten street” is to expose a part of yourself that can feel intensely vulnerable. writing with metaphors and imagery requires a sense of recklessness, a willingness to leap without knowing where you’ll land. when i write, i find myself backing away from these leaps, opting instead for the straightforward, the rational, and, yes, the safe.

i’ve tried to teach myself to break free, to think in ways that let the world feel just a little bit stranger. i’ll sit and look at an object, trying to see it as something it’s not—a tree as a shadow, a cup as a hollowed-out hourglass. i might even take a walk and attempt to give each sight a texture, a sound, something more than just “tree,” “cup,” or “sky.” but i find myself hesitating, the descriptions feeling forced, like i’m wearing a costume that doesn’t fit.

and here’s the irony: i want to write this way, not only because it’s beautiful, but because it’s a way of capturing what life often feels like to me—something almost otherworldly in its complexity. reading something rich with imagery makes the world seem fuller, as if life is capable of holding more than i can sense. i want to explore that richness, to find words that resonate with the same depth. but as soon as i sit down to write, i’m back to plain words, to a reality that doesn’t translate onto the page the way i hope it might.

it makes me wonder if maybe there’s another way, if there’s a different style out there that’s as fulfilling as imagery-heavy writing but also feels more natural to me. maybe my form of expression doesn’t have to be dressed up in metaphors or wrapped in flowery language to carry its own weight. perhaps my clarity, my straightforwardness, has its own power—a transparency that doesn’t need to hide behind ornaments or extravagant phrases.

i remember a quote from a writer who said that their work was all about “capturing the edges of things,” those half-formed ideas that drift at the periphery of thought. maybe i don’t have to “capture” anything at all. maybe i can let things be as they are, to write what i see in the clearest language i know. if metaphors and imagery feel like visitors in my writing rather than residents, maybe i’m meant to work with the language that comes naturally to me. and if i can find a way to be at peace with that, my words can feel as full as those richly painted sentences i admire so deeply.

who knows?