An Unexpected Therapist

I wrote because of a snake that slithered through my vessels,

Wound around my lungs and constricted,

Sank fangs into my heart and

Exchanged venom for life.

It grew fat from blood while my heart whined and writhed and

Withered.

And the venom could flow out my fingertips,

Slowly, very slowly,

Until it became black ink on a blue-lined page.

Or it could flow out my wrists.

So I wrote.

 

I wrote because I breathed,

Perhaps much too quickly

And maybe much too panicky,

And because I held my breath and flat-lined in erratic intervals.

I wrote like an insomniac in the middle of the day,

And because I hated breathing when rest was a dream

I could never fall asleep and have.

 

I wrote because of a shower I took when I was eight,

When poetry introduced herself and poured inspiration down my scalp.

I was a writer testing the waters

Who found a way for a stubby third-grader to be heard.

And I wrote of a God who was as simple as

A few columns of rhyming lines.

 

Now I write because I breathe evenly

And because I breathe unevenly.

I write because the sun shines and the rain falls,

Because I blink and am nineteen.

 

By Brynna Wright