Why do I write?

I write because I like to spew
All my thoughts out on a page.
The verbal vomit splurges and lands
Where I can pin it down.
There’s so much going through my mind,
Sometimes it needs dragging out
To where it can be stored
For future use or disposal.
It helps me think,
Helps me remember,
And helps me to forget.
It stops me spinning round and round
And shows me the way
To escape the circle
And remove the dizziness.

I write because I like to explore
Every corner of my mind.
To reach far shores,
Glimpsed in the distance,
As yet unmapped, new and strange.
To set sail into unfamiliar waters,
Steer through the shallows
And drift on the open sea,
Never knowing where
The breeze might blow me next.
To walk the familiar dirty streets,
Where I have been many times
Yet never really wish to see.
To sit in the peaceful fields,
Prosperous and sunny,
With few surprises left.
To stretch out beyond,
But also to seek
The new things close to home.

I write because I like to tell
My thoughts to someone else.
That someone may be silent,
Yet still they listen well.
It helps just to form the words,
In excitement or in woe.
Trivial dreams or deepest secrets
Are best told as a story.
Even one that won’t be read.

I write because I like to play
With words and sounds and images.
To make something new,
Never before heard.
Writing stories and poems and sentences,
Flowing rhythms or disjointed prose,
Describing things seen, done, heard,
Or wonderfully imagined.
The joy of putting sounds, colours, people
Down on paper in another form.

I write because I like to feel
The fascination of the way
I can turn an abstract thought
Into the sounds that form a word,
And then turn that word
Into symbols that pour
Out of my pen like a river of swirls,
Leaps, twists and lines.
And then to know that someone else
Could pick up the stream I make
And follow it for themselves.
A scrawl that translates into meaning
Is a thing of wonder and beauty.
I write because I can.