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.