Why I Write
I write to figure things out.
Taking comfort in the fact that any problem I have
can be fixed with a poem or a story.
This is ridiculous, obviously,
and only works maybe 5% of the time,
but when you rub into as many problems as I do,
you have to start making them productive.
I write to express.
To put the best version of myself
down on paper, before my mind wanders
and my brain short circuits
and I stumble over every simple word
that is perched on my tongue,
every abstract idea that I try to put into words,
leaving them scrambled and useless.
I write daily.
Therapeutic, it offers a brief vacation
from the boredom, the stress, the sadness,
the homesickness I am all too prone to.
7 years’ worth of journals stacked in a box,
tightly containing all my petty teenage issues,
coffee stains, tear stains and the first time I knew
I loved him.
I found my voice on those mismatched pages.
I write poems to understand myself and my world,
I write stories to escape the very same things,
To live in the settings I create
or the memories that I transcribe onto page
I write letters to tell him everything I cannot say
over the phone, my voice imprisoned by the tears I’m holding back,
and send a tiny piece of myself home with them.