Do you write because you
like the way that people look at you
when you say, proudly,
I am a poet
or is it because there is a girl
or a boy (or anyone)
in your life that you
want to hear your insides,
your innermost thoughts and dreams and questions that
you wouldn't normally share?
This girl writes wonders into words,
all the cruelty of the world and all of the beauty of it
wrapped up in lines ordered by
length or flow or some dramatic pattern.
This girl writes, uninterrupted (except
by commas and semicolons) about the way
light catches on dust
or the tang of hot peppers on the tongue;
chorizo over eggs for breakfast or the drop-off
of the river bank into the muddy water.
This girl writes for the courage to speak out
and the nostalgia of a soon-to-end childhood,
and cornfields and dirt under bare feet.