On Writing

I write, maybe, to converse
With the perceptive mind I so vainly seek in my verse

I write, some would say, out of a lack of faith,
Which I honestly don't find the strength to disagree with

I write, I sometimes think, to regain
All the love and life I've lost to pain

I write, I'm told, to escape
The mediocrity that pervades this modern landscape

I write, it can also be argued, to impress,
Whom, how or why would be anybody's guess

I write, time explains me, to forgive
Myself of the moments I've forgotten to live

And as the debate rages, I digress and ponder,
Affected by an irrepressible sense of wonder,

Who taught me to learn to write
To put wrong to right, black to white?
Who taught me to learn to see
When space and time disagree?
Who taught me to learn to feel
When life so sternly disciplined me to conceal?
Who taught me to learn to care
When cimmerian voices court me out of nowhere?

Was it loss?
Or the margins I forever failed to cross?
Was it fear?
Of disappearing without making myself clear?
Was it rage?
Or a desire to outlast the wreckage?

But when a vagrant word makes its choice
And an empty page finally finds its voice,
When chaos stills itself into a sentence
And a symphony breaks out of its silence,
When a dark night is devoured by a bright day's light
As a trembling heart flutters to life in black and white,
When a world fits into a scribbled word, mirrored in my stare,
There's a question to answer all questions, do I really care?