Why I Write Poems

Because prose takes the highway and poetry takes the fire escape— both get you there but one shows you the view from the outside of the building. I write poems because some feelings are too large for sentences and too small for novels and need a container the exact size of a held breath. A poem is a letter to someone who may not exist yet— sent forward through time, no postage, no address, just the hope that someone, someday, will read it and think: I am not alone. I write because my grandmother couldn't— because she had the words but not the paper, the time, the permission. I write with her words too. Poetry is not a luxury. It is the thing you reach for when the world is too much and not enough at the same time— the matchstick in the dark, the small fire that says: someone was here. Someone felt this. You are not the first.