#WhyIWrite

dawn

even though i was only fourteen
i’d already been writing poems
for years
when i rounded the corner in that path

my feet hummed like children’s tunes through the spring grass
stumbling into a moment i have never been able to describe

all i can tell you is that
there was the forest
and the lake
and the dawn, seeping in
and me, at fourteen years old, head tilted back and lips parted

i hadn’t known that the world could be
that beautiful

i had already started my lifelong discipline of
preserving everything important in words
like pinned butterflies in endless albums
i had thought that the world was something i could
find a way to keep

and in that blooming galileo moment i found out
about clouds and comets and galaxies and the ungraspable gorgeous awe of it that
filled every part of me
it, infinite, and me finite

i had not even enough space in my soul in that moment to form
the simplest preschool syllables

in one moment i was given wings by how huge beauty can be
and in the next moment shredded by the grief of all
i could not carry

i didn’t know that i would spend my life humming the tune of that
first, unwordable moment
as though searching for forgotten lyrics

as though if i succeeded i would be able to take back
the part of me that i left there
gasping
at the bend in the path