Why I Write

The noise is all around us. Yet we live without listening, we speak without listening. I write to be heard. I write to feel the spine tingling adventure that is vivid in my mind but not in others. I write to share the terror, mystery, and love story that is twisting and evolving constantly. I write because there are a thousand characters inside of me with different voices, Each dying to be heard… each needing to divorce themselves from my skin and become what they were meant to be. I do not write to rhyme so people know this is a poem, I do not write to give a happy ending and an easy night of sleep. I write to probe, to disturb and unsettle… to influence another’s mind to merely wonder. I write what makes me gasp, what makes me sit on the edge of my seat wondering what words my hands will write next. I write… not for joy, not to express myself, I write because I must. It is a need inside of me that will have me twitching if I do not connect paper with pen. I write because I need my words to connect. To hit one heart, bring one person’s knees to pavement. I write to conquer words. I am a Beethoven of my art, wanting music to bow to me and bend to my will. I demand that they evoke a feeling. That they make you feel my character’s pain, smell the rain that hits their faces and shed the tears that they do. I write not because I think that I am skilled… but because I must. Because just as my characters are me, I am my characters.