written

i. being a writer is more than just putting words together. more than just ink and paper. being a writer is pouring your mind and soul into this creation of blood and matter. being a writer is learning to turn grammar into art and syntax into poetry that flows off your tongue like rivers. being a writer is a thousand Wikipedia pages open on everything from the composition of gold to Hindu deities to ancient Iranian medicine to the Cold War. being a writer is two am conversations with the stars and four am arguments with your hallucinations. being a writer is learning to breathe life into all the things inside you.  

ii. what is poetry? there are a thousand different answers, but here is mine: poetry is words that dissolve in your mouth like sugar crystals and fizz like pop rocks. poetry tastes like lightning and thunderstorms, tastes like petrichor and hot asphalt under your bare feet, tastes like honeycombs and ripe raspberries and honeydew summers, tastes like the ocean- wild and open and deep, tastes like storm and fire and fury. it tastes also like hot cocoa and snowflakes melting on your tongue. and it tastes like sugar candies and the color pink. it tastes like muddy rivers and fresh caught bluefin. poetry is so much more than just symbols inked on a page. god, poetry makes your skin open up and listen. it breaks you apart and then sews you back together (sometimes in different shapes, but always better then before). poetry tastes like freedom and like expression and like hope and dreams and all the hidden things. 

iii. it's not always pretty. god only knows all the nights your spend frantic and frenzied and unable to speak or sleep because your mind is moving so fast you cannot catch up. sometimes you spend our time so silent you can bask in the whispers of forgotten gods and forget everything. only knows how many times you can forget your own name before you stop being something mortal.