Why I write

Do you remember the feeling you got when first your heart was broken? Mine was at the tender (?) age of seven and that was what spurred my toddling hands to pen my first poem. Wish I could lay my hands on it now though I know that I would be ashamed to call those lines a work of arts by any means; have I improved? I think so or I would like to believe so and some good folks do agree...

Writing for me has always been a means of self-expression in a place where no man (or woman!) could reach. When I hurt, I wrote. When I loved, I wrote. Writing was and still is the best way I express myself and stay sane in a world that seems to be going crazy. Everywhere you turn, everyone else has a story to tell so who will listen to mine? My paper is as sure a listener as Aunty Nkem’s little kids on Tales by Moonlight in those days.

Nothing makes me happier than writing. It wasn’t until recently that I got used to typing as it now is rather than writing but give me any day, a pen and paper and lock me up in a dungeon in Siberia and I would live because I live to write and I write to live. If you want to be charitable, play some music in the background as my pen scratches paper...it could be pop, or soft rock, fuji a la K1 de Ultimate or Beautiful Nubia’s folklore; those inspire like no other.

The paper never argues with or talks back to you or refuse to bend to your will, it simply lies there limply, begging to be taken with whatever emotion you are feeling at that point. It intoxicates you higher than alcohol and when that trusted lover jilts you, it just stays there waiting without judging or saying ‘I told you so’. The paper doesn’t care how you look or how large your pocket is, never asks for anything and if your muse fails to show up for some time, no hassles...the paper waits always like a faithful lover, yearning for your return.

I write because it sets my spirit free, I write because my fingers cannot but replace my mouth in this world of hidden feelings and doublespeak, so let me write, it is my right and let my words caress my soul into a feeling of greatness. I write...do you?