I read because it cracks
me open. I read to feel connection, the sheer overflowing of love I feel for
those who take the time to write. I read to criticize, and to be criticized; to
be critical of my own thoughts, my head-pounding, to examine why it is I think
at all. I read because I owe it to my fellow human, read on and on to pay
homage to those who want their voices heard. I read to listen. I read to banish
the silence and yet to embrace it. The space between the words tends to stick
with me, to form an idea that I am more than the sum of my parts, the silence
in my sinew, the pulsing of my heart. Hearing the silence without silence, the
breathing of the space, the air, the night, my lover’s eyes.
I read because it’s the
only way I know how to understand. What is it you’re trying to tell me? I read
because it isn’t up to you. “I belong to what I understand.” I am an avid
reader but only when it serves me, I don’t read enough. It’s a “should” but
when I turn the page, I am revealed. I am revered. I hold true to its potency,
and God I hate it when the words suck. I read to flow like blood, I read to
hear “the fine tune of my seldom-plucked heart strings.” I am alive and the
words remind me of that as I read them. I am honored and honorable, reading
with the whimsy of my own desire. I read with callous eyes in the hopes that
they can be softened, to let in the light. I read in an upside-down language,
the translation of my whole world narrowed down to three stanzas. I read in
order to love. I love to read but it hasn’t yet taught me to understand love.
My thoughts are reading this before I write, living always on the edge of
reason, unreasonable to assume I can truly know. I read because it breaks me
open and helps me put together a more holy whole. I read wholesome writing, and
God I hate it when the words suck. It’s worse than death, worse than the worst
breakup, when the words can’t properly speak.
I read because it’s the
only way I know how to listen. I listen for God and for Truth and for something
else. I listen as I read for what the author lived for, what he lived through,
why he didn’t live enough. I read because I want to. I read because someone
needs to hear the cry for help, the pang of regret, the joy of feeling. The
rendered space that is carved out within my soul, pixelated and buffering the
era of my woes. I read because it has to mean something. I read because it
shows me the meaning. The writing is mean, it is sad, I read to cry her tears,
to know what she has lost and what she has done about it. I read her catharsis,
the bent will of her forebears, the reason we still love and laugh. I read
because I don’t know what else to do. I read because I need to understand
something, anything, to keep this monkey off my back. I read about monkeys on
backs. I read in disgust sometimes, and sometimes I read when I can’t feel my
legs. I read when my life feels like it’s over and needs a new beginning, and
that’s the thing about non-fiction: “you can’t screw up the ending.”
I read because I know it’s
actually all fiction, “there are three sides to every story: yours, mine, and
the truth.” I read truth like it’s a lie told with the best intentions. I read
as a meditation, a milestone of mindlessness, of mindfulness, of Buddhist rants
and platitudes. I read because I need a justification, I need to justify my
actions and my inactions. I read to be more of who I am, I read to let go of
who I’m not. I read to fill up, to empty out, I read so that I may cry again. I
am listless without the words but my mind is always ranting. I read so I can
calm the rant and hear someone else’s, even if the words suck. God I hate it
when the words suck, they haunt me. They plague me worse than leprosy, even
when my fingers fall off I can still see the book, The Book, those whisperings
of a man nailed to a cross, I read his sonnet, his love song, all those sins.
God I hate it when the words suck. From thin air they stink up the place. Out
of nothing they are something, even when they suck.
This is in response to the following piece written by Terry Tempest Williams:
Why I Write by Terry Tempest Williams
This is in response to the following piece written by Terry Tempest Williams:
Why I Write by Terry Tempest Williams
It is just after 4:00 A.M. I was dreaming about Moab, Brooke
and I walking around the block just before dawn. I threw a red silk scarf
around my shoulders and then I began reciting in my sleep why I write: I write
to make peace with the things I cannot control. I write to create fabric in a
world that often appears black and white. I write to discover. I write to
uncover. I write to meet my ghosts. I write to begin a dialogue. I write to
imagine things differently and in imagining things differently perhaps the
world will change. I write to honor beauty. I write to correspond with my
friends. I write as a daily act of improvisation. I write because it creates my
composure. I write against power and for democracy. I write myself out of my
nightmares and into my dreams. I write in a solitude born out of community. I
write to the questions that shatter my sleep. I write to the answers that keep
me complacent. I write to remember. I write to forget. I write to the music
that opens my heart. I write to quell the pain. I write to migrating birds with
the hubris of language. I write as a form of translation. I write with the
patience of melancholy in winter. I write because it allows me to confront that
which I do not know. I write as an act of faith. I write as an act of slowness.
I write to record what I love in the face of loss. I write because it makes me
less fearful of death. I write as an exercise in pure joy. I write as one who
walks on the surface of a frozen river beginning to melt. I write out of my anger
and into my passion. I write from the stillness of night anticipating-always
anticipating. I write to listen. I write out of silence. I write to soothe the
voices shouting inside me, outside me, all around. I write because of the humor
of our condition as humans. I write because I believe in words. I write because
I do not believe in words. I write because it is a dance with paradox. I write
because you can play on the page like a child left alone in sand. I write
because it belongs to the force of the moon: high tide, low tide. I write
because it is the way I take long walks. I write as a bow to wilderness. I
write because I believe it can create a path in darkness. I write because as a
child I spoke a different language. I write with a knife carving each word
through the generosity of trees. I write as ritual. I write because I am not
employable. I write out of my inconsistencies. I write because then I do not
have to speak. I write with the colors of memory. I write as a witness to what
I have seen. I write as a witness to what I imagine. I write by grace and grit.
I write out of indigestion. I write when I am starving. I write when I am full.
I write to the dead. I write out of the body. I write to put food on the table.
I write on the other side of procrastination. I write for the children we never
had. I write for the love of ideas. I write for the surprise of a sentence. I
write with the belief of alchemists. I write knowing I will always fail. I
write knowing words always fall short. I write knowing I can be killed by my
own words, stabbed by syntax, crucified by both understanding and
misunderstanding. I write out of ignorance. I write by accident. I write past
the embarrassment of exposure. I keep writing and suddenly, I am overcome by
the sheer indulgence, (the madness,) the meaninglessness, the ridiculousness of
this list. I trust nothing especially myself and slide head first into the
familiar abyss of doubt and humiliation and threaten to push the delete button
on my way down, or madly erase each line, pick up the paper and rip it into
shreds-and then I realize, it doesn't matter, words are always a gamble, words
are splinters from cut glass. I write because it is dangerous, a bloody risk,
like love, to form the words, to say the words, to touch the source, to be
touched, to reveal how vulnerable we are, how transient. I write as though I am
whispering in the ear of the one I love.
