Why Do I Write

Why do I write?

Place the pen to the paper

my fingers to the keys

why do I write

fill white pages with color

black and red ink

why do I write

empty my mind of thoughts

and fill my heart with my mind

why do I write

to escape the existentialism that consumes me

or embrace it as part of my soul

no, I write because

anxiety contains me

and instead of being able to express it to someone else

the paper is the only person that can understand the pain that comes

from inside this shell.

This shell that is broken

from years of the abuse

inflicted upon me by one I called master

though I was treated as a stray with no owner.

I am a stray

I roam free

and I leech off of others

and demand sustenance

and love

and that my presence be known

but like a stray dog

I can provide people the happiness

that they deserve

if only my potential could be seen behind the fleas in my hair

or the dirt in my paws.

I am the stray dog

because I write to capture the attention of others.

Why do I write?

That is the question that holds me and haunts my mind still

I started writing when I was 7 and yet I continued on

and when I was 8

when I was 8 and daddy starting being not daddy anymore

and my mother started being as absent as the barbies dolls I put away because I was scared they were coming to get me at night

I began really writing

because it was the one secret I had for myself

no one could take the words away from me.

Why do I write

is it because every person I dare say I love you to

eventually left me

whether it be my family or my lovers or my friends

they treated me as nothing

and when there's nobody listening

you must learn to talk to yourself.

I write to sort out the pain of being human.

why do I write

do I write because the world is turning and I am lost in it's lust

for greed and power and sex and money

and I cannot stand it

I cannot stand it

the way people crave success

more than they crave happiness

the two are not the same and I feel I am the only person to understand this

I write to make the world more relatable

why do I write

is it to give a voice to people like me

those who are abused and beaten down and told they are nothing

told they are just queers walking down the street

women seeking to knock men from their bureaucratic seats

children seeking education that won't cost them their lives

people praying life will no longer make them want to to die

I am not just some queer

I am not just some woman

I am not just some child

and I write so maybe

the stray dog finds presence in my honest words

the child will keep secrets in the blue lines

so the pain becomes easier

and the world more relatable

and maybe someone will keep living

when they see that I am.