Why I Write : a poem (multigenre project)

a poem after "Why I Write" by Terry Tempest Williams

I write to lose my self-awareness. 

I write to squawk, to pray, to cheat missed opportunity.

I write to noodle, to gnaw, and to quiet the pain of a budding toothache.

I write for homecoming and escape. 

I write because it always feels like the first time, as if I’m slogging through two feet of sand.

I write to steal and call it borrowing.

I write to live lives I wasn’t born to, don’t deserve, and to which I have no claim, to sing opera, to inhabit a yurt.

I write the grocery list.

I write to expose and celebrate consistent inconsistencies, in dialogue, in dress,

in the language of yearning to be loved, and its too often counterpart, in learning to be kind.

I write to humble and be humbled.

I write to dance in the spaces in between, to throw up my arms, stick out my tongue, and to taunt binaries.

I write because the words I choose carry more weight, more history, and more secrets than I could ever intend.

I write because it pairs well with coffee.

I write so I can teach writers, because every time I advise students, “Show, don’t tell,”  

or “Could you use some unexpected imagery here?”

 I owe it in the honor of writing, of languages, of weather, chickens, déjà vu, the Redwood Forest,

and mostly importantly, of You,

to abandon habit, complacency, and assumption,

and to uphold a call for testimony.