To the girl writing in a cafe

My words look like your words but they are not.

My word doc looks like yours, my computer screen mirrors yours, my face reflected not yours.

The difference, my story could not be told by you, could not be told like yours, with ups and downs, brown sweaters and up-do's growing up.

Mine: hours locked in the bathroom while my sister pounds and yells, I know you're wearing my bra! Why don't you just admit it? I won't even be mad!

Your parents putting you in soccer, piano, making you do homework as soon as your feet step inside this house.

My school work barely being done, but reading books like breathing; late for school every day but the ones with early morning band rehearsal.

And why do you write? Do you write because you have to, a requirement, a stepping stone, nothing more?

Or like me, can you not live without it? Do you starve, like the roots of a plant in the desert, searching, going down, further further to get to that soil with moisture, that lifesource and drive never ceasing, growing stronger with the days.

Do you need to sit by the window in order to think? If you write crap do you sink, feelings of worthlessness hitting you like that softball to the nose when you you were ten? Tell me, why do you write, headphones plugged in, do you even listen to music, or like me, do you wear them to block out the world, that world that inspires and tires you; that you need to write about and that you run away from, for fear that once you start you won't. ever. stop.