Never Again Experienced

• Caitlin Bouyer, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2018

The pen is dry. My thoughts and emotions are whirling through my head too fast for words. The shapes they call letters will forever be insufficient; they will never fully capture the original sensation.
A note forever remaining flat, never quite reaching its full potential. The raw feelings are too wild and they will never submit; never to be captured and put on display. When I do manage to write a small piece of it down, it's just a taste; never a meal, never filling, never satisfying. It will please the tongue but never the stomach.
They say it's good but, really, they won't ever experience the emotions I try to create. That is reserved for its original recipient and, no matter how much I try and practice, it will never be recreated in its full splendor. It will only be a shadow of the original masterpiece, lacking colour and detail. I can only sketch the outside and it may be a good outline, but no-one will ever appreciate the real feeling locked deep within. An artist forced to gaze at a view they can never share, can never capture. All I can do is create what I can of a window - a peephole more like - so that, when I read it again, I may enter that little peephole and remember the view I had once experienced. Others will look through but won't have my memory, won't remember how much greater it actually was. They will exclaim about how good it is but if only I could show them what I want so desperately to share. No matter how much I try, there will never be enough words in any language to understand the things inside me; no shape or letter, word or book, sound or song, no feeling or taste. Nothing can fully capture the things I see and feel deep inside; they will forever stay hidden.
A peephole, but never the view.
A shadow, but never the body.
A shallow sketch, but never the masterpiece.
Little tastes here and there, but never a meal.
Imitated, recreated, but never again experienced.