Debby traced the contour of the letter j on her keyboard. She felt its tawny, worn-down key and its faint bump to guide her fingers. But it did not guide her spirit. Her mind was lost and wandering without direction. She spun in her tan desk chair that her mother gifted her for her birthday. That was before she relocated to college. It resulted in her deserting her family, left in the dust. She remained in touch the first couple of weeks, but distance and time apart led to silence. Debby felt the chair's coarse cloth and its firm, plastic armrests. Debby wished for inspiration. She surveyed her room, yearning that something, anything would jump out to her. Then she found it, a collection of posters on the wall. A Halloween poster with a small ghoul and a “How to use Morse code” poster were fused in her mind. Morse was one of her beloved ghost words. She began to type the concept into a small poem, but she was interrupted by images of her family that poisoned her writing. Debby wanted to get back in touch, but she did not understand why. Debby was the black sheep, so she had a notion that her family was indifferent to her disappearance. Teardrops slid down her now moistened skin and dripped onto the faded g key. “G for ghost.” She placed her weak hand onto the backspace and observed the disappearance of words, words created that were now destroyed. "It is for good reason though," she thought. Debby conceived a better idea. She started to type:

“For those proficient in writing,”

          She cherished her ability to write. Despite all of the pain and obstacles in her way throughout the years, writing had healed her and helped her cope with life ever since she learned the ABC’s. She began to dream of all those who shared her love of writing, her true family. Debby's short, sweet, artistic English professor had a knack for unearthing the art of writing in other media. He composed elegant poems and collages that depicted great feeling and theme. He always told Debby “collages are just like writing a paper. You must find a theme, make a draft, remove what doesn’t fit, and rearrange the pieces so that it gives the greatest impact to the readers.” 

          The revelation swirled within her mind. She pieced together fragments of her life and connected them to the theme in inventive ways. She completed not only her poem but a feeling growing inside her. A feeling that she was whole. Debby began to read what she had drafted. The satisfaction and fulfillment overflowed her with a sense of belonging. She understood that her piece wasn’t flawless, just as life wasn't, but it was original. Straight from her heart, her soul, and her mind. Debby spread the heavy curtain that covered her window like a wing and unlocked the shutter so that the moonlight shined on her. The writer's block had soared away and left her with so much more. Debby opened the chilled glass window and began to read her poem out into the world. Her tongue formed lyrical constants that carried for miles and ricocheted off of the surfaces of the simplistic street she lived on. For all those who listened, they identified that the speaker was powerful, passionate, and unhesitant, like a bird who trilled songs of love.

“For those proficient in writing,

That bend their words into sculptures and art,

Or a scholar who writes persuasive essays,

Or a reporter who informs others of daily news,

A word in the back of their mind taunts them,

And haunts them,

And they are driven insane by a speakers’ idoiticy,

Or their publisher’s misprint,

That lead an uninformed, uneducated society to believe,

Believe in a word that doesn’t exist,

A ghost word.”