Why I Write

Once I pressed onwards in darkness without even myself for company and I wrote to drive pitons into a sheer cliff.  I tried to thread myself through them because I was afraid to fall.  I wrote to crack a whip over myself because I didn’t know why I was climbing.  I wrote myself a yarn that I stretched like Theseus as I struggled through an inner labyrinth.  I wrote whenever I could see.  I wrote to erode the Sisyphean pit.

Now I write to rappel into the depths because that is where I found myself waiting.  I write to shed light on my subterranean discoveries.  Then I write to dispel the vertiginous ascent as I carry them upwards.  I write to press onwards─to create myself.  I write to press inwards and center myself. I write to spin my impressions on the wheel, to feel them running through my fingers as my hand guides them with a will of its own.  I write to steal from nature, like Prometheus, and give fire to my creations.  I write to set my words in a kiln and see if they crack. 

I write because I don’t trust my reason.  I write because I am lost without it.  I write because I know how easy it is to lose oneself, so I write to dance with myself until I am exhausted.  I write as an act of resistance against the succession of moments. I write to assert my will, then I write to give into it, and, finally, to overcome it. 

I write as in a log, while I hunt for inspiration.  I tell myself to wait, to hold for the right moment, letting my thoughts run ahead when they catch a scent.  I hold for the flush, my fingers wrapped around the pen lightly like a trigger, and I follow my impressions until just before they crest.  That’s when I pounce. 

I write because I cannot believe in ideals.  I am looking for some aspect of truth.  I write to hear from the silent god within.  I try to trace the outlines on the page and feel him looking at me.  Sometimes I feel he approves and other times I can sense his contempt.  I always listen.

Every evening, I read in bed and so often I am seized by the words of another.  I reach into them and feel myself expanded.  As the night goes on, I forget that a pen lies unsheathed besides me. When I give into sleep, my body presses against it, writing my tossing and turning into the sheets.  In the morning, I am confronted by my chaotic markings but I continue to wrap myself in my nocturnal writings because I know it will happen again.