Why I Write

It is a lurking fear that I can never write as well as the previous day, that I find it hard to articulate the flood of emotions that I often find myself needing to release. In those instances I find myself a pen, and sit down on the corner of bed (that's where most of the writing is done), and scribble away.

Sometimes I write about animals, of grass and trees in the wind. Sometimes I write about empty faces I see when walking down the streets. Sometimes I write about my mistakes and shortcomings. Sometimes inanimate objects take lead as metaphors to a life not led.

In that simple act I train my mind to let go - willingly erupt into a flurry of expression, letting the heart guide the pen onto the crisp paper. I read my writing sometimes, and find myself in ridicule for the past written. So many times I've wanted to throw them all out - my careless altercations with the subservient representation of my being.

But I have only till recently kept them hidden away - if not in mind then in physicality, yellowing to a soft yielding crumble juxtaposed to the authority and angst carved onto their pages. I would look at them constantly only to have them look back; my past grievances trading blows with the weak autocracy of a waylaid psyche that refuses to verbalize its hopes, dreams, wishes and prayers.

And for the fallen syllables and verses I prepared a funeral rite - a passage of purpose, fulfilling the immense promise they have been brought up for; for the dead words and uprooted emotions I prepare a feast of their brethren - more words to feed the words, unrelentingly pouring forth from my cursed mind, repeating the repeated, removing cause from the unpurposeful; telling the same tale of the same subject from the same person at the same time upon the stubborn intestines of the present.

A long tale retold to no one, heard by a lonely ear of the writer; applauded by the majesty of my ego; crucified by the nonchalance of reality.

And of what do I bleed? Of nature and it's splendor? Of promise and its ironies? Of dreams and their prospects? Of people and their faces? Of love and its cruelty? Of nothing?

But I write.

Now, standing upon the carcasses of fallen hopes, failed verses and the misshapen molds of reality, I realize that I write of but one thing - a simple word that I hold so dear.

Truth.

And one day, I wish I can do more than write.