I don’t write, I listen.

I don’t have the talent, or skill, or natural linguistic ability

I don’t converse fluidly with ease of speech

I stumble over phrases and ideas though I know in my head exactly what I mean

I try to instill the same passion in everyone else that rushes through me like the wave of the ocean under my boogie board

But my words don’t flow

I'm a thinker, an analyzer, I'm intuitive, inward.

But cant writing be inward? No.

In truth, this is the first poem I've written by my own instinct

No assignment, no criteria, no required purpose, no deadline

I’m writing because

I'm writing because someone told me that I could

Someone told me that I can write

And why?

Why did those words have so much meaning to me that I was motivated to write a poem about it

Why, when all of these years I believed I was not a writer and never would be that

When he told me I could write, I sat down and wrote

Why did those three words speak to me more than the long philosophical essays that I try to make you understand and maybe find inspiration from

Why have I tried so hard to be the person that doesn’t write?

Why have I convinced myself that I am no good

I have used those three words before!

Yes you can. You can do anything.

Anyone who has known me would know this is the ambit of my vocabulary

Ambit encompassing one of the thousand essay words I have thesaurused to write with

Because I can’t write.

I can’t write.

I cant write.

I can

write.

Because I listen.

I listen to you when you tell me one more pedal stroke on my bicycle will take me further.

I listen to your experience because you rose form nothing and you told me that coming form everything would mean a new and different but very real struggle

I listen to your breathing because I know that the patterns symbolize your state of wellness as you lay in my bed whispering a changed rhythm nightly.

I listen because I care about you, about what you have to say, and I listen because you are right.

You are as right as I am right when I tell you, you can be great. You can change the world.

I believe it and my faith in you will carry you to excellence because you were born with a gift.

And you are right.

But not because I have the gift to construct a beautiful ornate palace of delicately crafted language.

But because I listen. And I will always listen.

Because it is because of you that I write.

And I can’t write, but I can listen.