“Writing
Isn’t going to get you
Anywhere.
You won’t
Make a living with
Pretty words.”

Go ahead,
Tell me what writing isn’t, won’t, can’t.
Tell me what I will never accomplish
Through writing.

I’m not writing for
Money, fame,
I’m not even writing for
You.

When words hit the page,
Be it by pen or printer ink,
They hit that page
For me.

So what
If writing doesn’t bring me places,
If it won’t pay the bills.
As long as it fills the page,
As long as it makes me
Smile, cry, laugh,
I don’t need to go places
And I can find another way to pay the bills.

I won’t stop writing
Even when my fingers ache
And I’ve strained my eyes squinting at the page,
Even when I’m senile,
Writing the same poems
Every morning and every night,
Because I’ve forgotten.



I will write
Because no matter what puts food on the table,
It can’t give me the same satisfaction,
Or the same exhilaration I feel when
Words stain the page.

And nothing can capture an
Idea, thought, feeling
The way words can.
Only words can trap it in a jar,
Drown it in a pool, tie it to a post,
Lock it in a cage, toss it down a rabbit hole,
And, in doing so, set it free.