If I did not write, I would die.

This is not hyperbole. This is not

Dramatic, attention-seeking tactics.

This is not me toeing the edge of the roof, again,

Knowing full well I’m afraid of heights, falling, and dying.

This is fact: the world has been alive and breathing

For four billion years, and I will die

If I do not write what’s settled in my bones,

It will swallow me whole.

 

Writing has always been easier.

When I was in preschool, no, kindergarten,

No… first, second, third, fourth…

Let me start this again:

When I was in elementary school,

Writing with my shaking hands and bad pencil position

was easier than using my

Broken mouth, my slurring mouth,

My lisping mouth, my everything all wrong mouth.

Writing was being understood, for once,

Without intervention, without translation.

Writing was the freedom that my immigrant thoughts

Had been dreaming of.

 

And when I was in tenth grade and met

Face to face for the first time with

Lifelong health issues, mental illnesses

with no easy cure, I cried-- then

Reached in the dark for a pen.

I was convinced that if I could

Focus long enough, I’d write myself

Back to health, write myself okay again.

And now I know, I was equal parts foolish

And brilliant.

 

I will never write my sickness out of me

But I can write it into public displays

Of affectionate affliction

I can write love letters to the doctors who say

People like me don’t know how to love, tell them

To shove it, I will love and love and love and--

I’m cycling the wheel of emotions out of control and

Love will always be my favorite.

And this isn’t to say that love never hurts, that love is never difficult.

But love is rewarding. Love never leaves me

Sobbing on the steps, love never tells me

To weave between fast traffic in the slow dark, love never hopes for the worst.

Love leaves me exhausted on my best friend’s living room floor,

Crying because I made it, I made it. Love catches me hoping for

Tomorrow. Love keeps the nerves down better than any medicine

I didn’t have the money to try.

 

I’m writing thank you notes to past selves,

‘thank you for being alive thank you for being alive thank you for staying here

because life has turned into something so beautiful you

would weep. You are weeping, I’m sorry for

the tearstains, I don’t remember when I started

crying.

xoxo I love you.’

I’m writing to remind myself that I

Do not destroy like the way I think about myself

In nightmares.

I create, I’m creating, I’m creative.

I am so much more than the world has made me out to be.

 

If I did not write, I would die.

This isn’t a call-and-response for attention. This is not

Exaggeration. The world cannot swallow me whole,

If I ratchet its mouth open with my words.