Dear World,
I am a writer.
No, I’ve never had one of my poems published.
No, you can’t walk into Barnes & Noble
And see my name on the cover of the latest bestseller.
And that might never happen.
Those things aren’t what make me a writer.
I am a writer because
I don’t know any other way to live.
I am a writer because I see a blank page
Or an empty screen and feel an
Irresistible compulsion to fill it with words.
I am a writer because to me there is
No greater feeling than seeing a page
Covered with my own words.
I am a writer because it makes sense
To me to breathe in ideas like oxygen
And exhale them onto paper.
I am a writer because as a young child
I felt this need to take my crayon
And scrawl nonsense words across my scratch paper
Until there was no more room to write.
It didn’t matter that my handwriting was
Made up of chicken scratches that
Even a chicken couldn’t read.
It didn’t matter that I didn’t know how to
Write any real words besides my own name.
I simply wrote.
I wrote twenty-letter words made up of
Mostly z’s and
x’s because I felt
That those letters were sadly neglected by the
English language and I simply loved the shape.
I am a writer because I have to write,
Because there is something inside of me
That makes it so that writing is to me
What eating and drinking are to you.
It is a basic need for me.
If you took away my pen
And told me to stop writing,
I would look at you in shock.
Then I would reach for the nearest dictionary
To see if “stop” had somehow become
Synonymous with “start” or “keep”.
After confirming that it hadn’t,
I’d come back and reclaim my pen,
Even if I’d have to wrestle you to the ground,
Slit your throat, and pry it from
Your cold, lifeless hands.
Because to tell me to stop writing
Is the same thing as saying,
“Stop breathing.”
You might never read anything I’ve ever written.
You might not even read this.
If you do read something I’ve written,
You might not understand or enjoy it.
If you happen to read some of my writing
And you do enjoy it or understand it, that’s great.
But if you don’t, I don’t care.
If you want to criticize me,
Don’t bother, because I won’t listen
If you read my writing and want to give
Me advice on how to make it better, I’ll listen,
But I won’t necessarily change anything
Just because you think I should.
Because I don’t write for you.
I will fill line after line,
Page after page, book after book,
Until I fill a library with volumes of my words.
If I write a thousand books and have
A thousand editors write “Who cares?”
In red pen over my words, that doesn’t matter.
Because I care.
And I don’t write for them.
I write for no one but myself.
If I wrote for others,
There would be no joy in it.
I don’t write for the critics, the scoffers, the
fools.
I don’t write for the ignorant masses that
Look at a carefully crafted poem and
Cannot find a speck of deeper meaning.
Their opinions mean nothing to me.
I write for myself.
I write, even though sometimes simply the
Act of holding a pen makes
My fingers ache down to the bone.
I write even though sometimes my hands hurt
As I type and fumble over the keys.
And I will keep writing, even if it hurts, because
I know that it would hurt much more to stop.
If I wake up one day and find that I can no longer
Move my fingers that will not stop me.
I will pick up my pen with my mouth
And learn to grip it between my teeth
And make it move across the page to form
The letters I once formed with my hands.
I will use my tongue to press each and every
Key on my keyboard, because even if
I type my words at a snail’s pace
At least the words are coming out.
If my teeth and tongue fail me,
I will hold my pen between my toes
And learn to write that way.
If that fails, I will try something else.
I will stop at nothing to get my words on paper.
I will keep writing.
One day, I will die.
I know it will happen,
And I’m not afraid of it.
But what I am afraid of is that
When my body has turned to ash,
My ideas too will turn to dust,
Be carried away, and disappear
As if they’d never existed.
But if I fill a million pages with my ideas,
At least they will be something tangible,
Something I can hold in my hands, look at, and say,
“I wrote this; this came from my mind, my heart, my
soul.”
So, Dear World,
If you remember only one
Thing I say, remember this:
If you want me to stop writing,
You’ll have to kill me first.
And if you do,
If you take me and snap me in half
Like a cheap ballpoint pen,
I will bleed out on you.
I will leave my final writing
Stained permanently on your hands,
Not in scarlet red but with the
Jet-black ink that runs through my veins.
Because I am a writer.
