Why I Write

Making spaces where space has never been, some create the universe with graphite, paint, smudged hands, and a smock apron. Others conjure up ethereal landscapes with their breath and the air around them, funneling it through strings and hollow, brass tubes. Some people never make anything at all. They only live for the journey, to fully immerse themselves under the surface and not come back up until they've discovered a bit of something. They live so that when the knock from the other side gets louder, they can confidently reply, "Through trough and crest, I cherished it all." Still, others only know how to draw pictures with words, and for all these reasons, I write.  

But what is the point of placing words on a page? The act of it seems hollow. Great things are only created from blood, laughter, love, and tears. To write, for me, is as much about wearing the carpet raw in little circled paths on the floor, peeking through my blinds at three in the morning with droopy, bloodshot eyes. Sometimes it finds me in an upward trance, playing catch with the fluorescence on the ceiling, tossing that piece of fruit in the air one last time and hoping it comes down with an answer attached to it. And the answer is always the same. To write anything worthwhile is to stare death in the eyes, steal breath from something beautiful, hold it, then get lost on purpose and escape; to be honest with ourselves; to make bad decisions, and know what it's like to wake up lonely and sore; to lose something you love, become vanquished, and get it back again. Even when the pencil doesn't push the paper, we are always writing. Even if the words aren't there, we are always living. The universe is a story; all we do is unfold.

 I write for intoxication, for catharsis, because Baudelaire said, "be continually drunk," and Plath told me I couldn't stop the blood jet from flowing, anyway. I write because beating hearts don't fall silent when they lie down at night nor eyes end their visions after the sun comes up. I do it because a high-salary engineering job would have still left me starving. I write for the moments that step on my jaw and leave me face down on the floor. I write for the sake of November mornings, tender, four o'clock moments of love when the air carried through the bedroom window brings with it the crisp, gray reminder of rain. I do it because there are wheels and eyes in my chest that well up every time light dances off the water...and all I want is to drown in it. I write because time rubs against me, and the sands are quickly receding. The reasons why have never really mattered. Sooner or later, we all slip into the ocean.