Why I Write
I write
Not for praise or for achievement
but because I can, and knowing that is power
in a world where secrets clear as day
find their only fortress in letter-speckled pages
on the sturdy shelves of the educated
For those whose lives are far from stable
I – idealist, as it were – will expose the guilt of the system
I write
Not because I have all of the right words
but because I have been taught how to find them,
feel them, and use them to undo what is wrong
For those whose only alphabet is the sounds of poverty
I will drown out the noise with my keys
I write
Not to find my own voice and have it heard
but to be the voice of those
whose wings have been tied by words
like Hutu and Tutsi
For the powerless whose destitution is just numbers in textbooks
I will live in the cluttered cities and tell the stories of their slums
I write
Not because I’ve seen or known it all
but because words are all I know, all I need,
and everything I want for the world