“Why Do You Write?”
"I found some of your poetry. Why do you write?"
I laugh, never having gotten that question from someone who didn't also write poetry. I tell him I always write, when I want to remember a moment and how it felt, how sometimes it's a reflection, other times a prayer. I tell him I write so I can look at my fears written out before me, or as a way of letting out occasional bouts of giddiness that makes my fingertips forget how to hold my pen. Sometimes I write to let myself process anger, grief, and some missing-so-and-so. Other times, it's a promise.
"What's your method?" he presses further.
I explain that most of my poems are freeverse, mostly from lack of patience, but also an abundance of ignorance. 10th grade ruined writing ‘real poems' for me, and my mind seems to have forcefully rejected all memory of forms and meters and rhyming schemes. I tell him I like to think that the lack of form fits with my ADHD personality. He laughs at that.
"Poetry is pretty important to you, isn't it?”
I nod in answer, a soft smile playing at the corners of my lips. He doesn't know it, but in my head I've already written a poem about the way he reached for my hand. Some day, maybe I'll let him read it.
~A.G. 4/30/19
