Reasons Why I Write

When I'm alone with my thoughts I often think about the person I am. I have many titles, and they change as I change, but through the years, since I was very young, I have always been in my heart an artist, a poet. I can't imagine my life before drawing, and even before I had the skills, I knew there was poetry in my soul.

Through much of my youth, I struggled with putting my thoughts down in written form. I found it too personal to record them in such a permanent fashion. Art was a way for me to express myself without definite words. The observer often sees as much what the artist intended as they do their own thoughts, desires, emotions. I could allow my thoughts and feelings to flow without questions about the meaning, about my pain. To many, they saw only a pretty picture; few saw the sad eyes or the loneliness and powerlessness of the person behind the picture.

As I grew, I sometimes found that a picture was too vague to truly express what I needed. Although my poetry often remains for my eyes only, or for the eyes of strangers, I still wanted the reader to understand the struggles, fears, and even triumphs that I experience. It is my therapy, to release the shadows that encroach on my soul; to free myself from the weight of silence and the pain that comes from holding too much of the past in your chest. And I suppose in some small way, it is my way of reaching out to the world, the world that never noticed me before, and leaving a little piece of me behind.