I started writing because there's an absence of things I was

Host: The evening sky bled into hues of deep violet and amber, the kind of color that makes a city street look almost holy in its exhaustion. The air was thick with the scent of rain-soaked asphalt, and the neon lights outside the diner pulsed in lazy rhythm, flickering like a heartbeat that refused to give up. Inside, a faint jazz record played through static — a saxophone moaning in the background, weary but alive.

Jack sat by the window, his hands wrapped around a chipped mug, eyes half-lidded, lost in the kind of silence that feels earned. Across from him, Jeeny sat curled against the booth, sketchbook open, a pencil tucked behind her ear, her face caught between thought and memory.

For a long time, they said nothing. Only the sound of rain on glass and the hum of a broken ceiling fan.

Jeeny: “Ntozake Shange once said, ‘I started writing because there’s an absence of things I was familiar with… a yearning I had as a teenager.’”
Her eyes lifted, distant, reflective. “That line — it feels like she’s speaking to every artist I’ve ever known. Every person who ever wrote because the world forgot to make space for them.”

Jack: “Or because they couldn’t shut up the noise inside their own heads.”

Host: Jack’s voice was low, husky, carrying both sarcasm and truth. He leaned back, the light from the street slicing across his face, catching the faint scars of sleeplessness beneath his eyes.

Jeeny: “You make it sound cynical.”

Jack: “It is. Writing isn’t noble. It’s desperate. You don’t write because you’re full — you write because something’s missing, and it won’t stop clawing until you try to name it.”

Jeeny: “That’s exactly what she meant, Jack.”

Jack: “Maybe. But she called it yearning. I call it hunger. There’s a difference.”

Jeeny: “Is there?”

Jack: “Yearning still believes. Hunger doesn’t. Hunger devours everything — even hope.”

Host: The rain outside grew heavier, the streetlights blurred into streaks of molten gold. Jeeny’s fingers traced the edge of her sketchbook, the pencil trembling slightly between them.

Jeeny: “When I was a kid,” she said softly, “I used to sit under the kitchen table and draw faces that didn’t exist. Women with dark skin and wild hair, eyes that looked like they could burn through the page. I didn’t see them anywhere — not in books, not on screens, not even in my own family photos. I think that’s when I started to understand what Shange meant — that absence. That kind of loneliness where you don’t see yourself reflected in anything.”

Jack: “So you drew to fill the gap.”

Jeeny: “Yes. I think most of us create to answer silence. It’s not about ego. It’s about survival.”

Jack: “Maybe. Or maybe it’s just vanity — people trying to immortalize their pain, make it look beautiful.”

Jeeny: “Pain is beautiful, if it births something honest.”

Host: A flash of lightning briefly illuminated the diner — the cracked tiles, the condensation on the windows, the two of them suspended in that small, fragile moment. Jack’s expression softened, but his voice stayed sharp.

Jack: “You really think art heals people, Jeeny? It might give meaning, sure. But it doesn’t fix the emptiness. You write your truth, and when it’s done — the world still looks the same.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. You look different. That’s the point.”

Jack: “You sound like one of those motivational posters — ‘art saves.’”

Jeeny: “It does. Not by changing the world, but by changing the person who dares to speak when silence was expected.”

Host: She leaned forward, her eyes glinting with quiet fire, the kind that doesn’t shout, but burns slow and steady. Jack stared into his coffee as if the dark surface might answer him.

Jack: “When I was seventeen, I used to write lyrics. Bad ones. Angry, desperate stuff. My father found them once and laughed — said I was wasting my time, said no one wanted to hear the thoughts of a nobody. I stopped writing after that.”

Jeeny: “And now?”

Jack: “Now I talk too much and feel too little.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s your silence — not the absence of words, but the absence of truth.”

Host: Her words hung in the thick air between them, and Jack’s eyes flicked up to meet hers. For a heartbeat, something raw passed across his face — not anger, not pain exactly, but recognition.

Jack: “You think that’s what Shange meant? That art comes from that kind of wound — the kind no one sees, but you keep bleeding from anyway?”

Jeeny: “Exactly. She wasn’t writing to impress anyone. She was filling a vacancy — the space where she should have existed but didn’t. Every word she wrote was an act of reclamation.”

Jack: “Reclamation of what?”

Jeeny: “Of self. Of presence. Of belonging.”

Host: The rain softened now, the storm breaking into a slow drizzle. The music from the jukebox shifted to an old blues song, the kind that sounded like confession more than melody. Jack’s voice grew quieter.

Jack: “You ever think that art — writing, painting, whatever — is just a rebellion against invisibility? Like saying, ‘I was here. I mattered.’”

Jeeny: “Isn’t that the most human thing to say?”

Jack: “Maybe. But what if the world still refuses to listen?”

Jeeny: “Then you keep speaking anyway.”

Host: Jeeny’s voice broke slightly on that word — anyway. Jack noticed, but didn’t mention it. He just nodded, his thumb tracing the chipped rim of his cup.

Jack: “You know, I envy people like Shange. To take anger and turn it into art — to mold the ache instead of being molded by it. That’s power.”

Jeeny: “It’s also pain. Don’t forget that.”

Jack: “Pain’s unavoidable. The question is — what do you build from it? A wall or a bridge?”

Jeeny: “Shange built bridges. Between the unseen and the unspoken. Between who she was told to be and who she truly was.”

Jack: “And you?”

Jeeny: “I’m still trying to lay the first stone.”

Host: The sound of the rain faded completely now, replaced by the hum of the city beyond the glass — cars, laughter, fragments of lives moving in rhythm. Inside, the diner had gone quiet. The waitress had stopped wiping the counter and was watching the news on a small television in the corner, her face lit by the flicker of headlines that felt distant, irrelevant.

Jack: “You ever think maybe we write not because we want to fill the void, but because we are the void — and it’s trying to understand itself?”

Jeeny: “Maybe both. Maybe the void just wants to be heard.”

Jack: “So every poem, every story, every painting… it’s just a conversation with our absence?”

Jeeny: “Yes. A love letter to what we lost — or never had.”

Host: A moment passed. Then another. The light outside shifted again, soft and golden now, the last breath of sunset cutting through the rain-streaked glass.

Jeeny: “You said once you don’t believe in faith. But you do believe in expression, don’t you?”

Jack: “Expression, yes. Faith… I’m still negotiating with.”

Jeeny: “Maybe they’re the same thing.”

Jack: “How do you figure?”

Jeeny: “Faith is believing your voice matters before anyone hears it. Writing is the same.”

Host: Jack smiled faintly, a tired smile, but genuine. He glanced out the window, watching the reflection of the street lights dance on puddles, like tiny lanterns in the dark.

Jack: “Then maybe every word we write is a prayer — not to God, but to ourselves. To the version of us still waiting to exist.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Every sentence a small act of resurrection.”

Host: The diner felt suspended in that truth — a pocket of stillness carved out of the city’s noise. The neon flickered again, glowing now against the soft after-rain mist.

Jeeny closed her sketchbook and looked at him, her eyes gentle but unflinching.
Jeeny: “We all start writing for the same reason, Jack. Because we’re missing from the stories we were told. And because silence hurts more than failure.”

Jack: “And when the stories are done?”

Jeeny: “Then, maybe, the silence finally sounds like peace.”

Host: Outside, the last of the storm clouds dissolved into the darkening sky. The street shimmered with a thin veil of light — the city’s reflection, glimmering like memory. Inside, Jack and Jeeny sat quietly, two figures framed in amber glow, their words still echoing between them — words not meant to change the world, but to fill it.

And for a brief, delicate moment, that absence Shange spoke of no longer existed. It had been filled — not by perfection, but by presence.