Words: Why do I Write?

I write…

…to find my stories that fill the gap between memory and truth, to discover the lost moments before they fall into a wasteland of broken parts and disappear in the heap.

I write to know emotion-names do little justice. A name is only a name, a cloud that vanishes. Add my version of sadness or thrill or elation and the emotion becomes mine. The cloud takes form. I name it. No one else sees the same cloud as me.

I extract the universal. Writing is gutting a fish-I peel away the skin, slice through the flesh, and pluck out brittle bones. The story is there, beneath the pink and fleshy and ripe. My hunger is sated when I strip the spine and imprints are fossils with stories to tell.

I write to hear the dance of words in my head. No! That wasn’t right. Start the dance again. This time without the blunt kick of the “k”. Try the soft step of the “p” instead. Yes, much better.