Sylvanus Now Contest: The Reasons

Here is the second of today's entries.

The Reasons
by
George Carveth

My friend and I chat through the night into the early morning. We talk about everything, anything. After a particularly spell-binding conversation I found I could not go to sleep until I had written a poem, something I'd not done for a long while. After a bit of polishing off it goes and the ensuing conversation revolves around writing.

Do I write?

No, not really anymore.

Why not?

Nervous laugh: defense mechanism. That question's as difficult as answering why I started writing in the first place.

As a child I loved to draw -- I loved colors to be exact. My father was blind and what good were my drawings to him? Was it that simple: a boy seeking his father's approval, looking to communicate in the most effective manner possible? Is there a better reason? Maybe there is no reason. I just happened to have away with words and enjoyed playing with them, more so than with toys--though I loved toys very much.

Ideas, however, did not break, but grew, took on a life of their own. Their articulation was limitless to me, unlike G.I. Joe, who couldn't even straighten his fingers.

And so, there are two of perhaps many reasons I began to write, though where the truth lies is up to the reader to decide: I became more concerned with tone, images. I continued to write, fill volumes of notebooks, all through high school and into college. Looking through them now, I cringe mostly and laugh sometimes. I laugh again when I think that I was convinced that I would be a writer -- a poet to be precise, after I graduated.

I was editor of the college literary magazine, The Writers' Revue. And what happened after college? I became a printer for the next fifteen years, scribbling verses frantically, albeit with less frequency, throughout my breaks and lunches. I fell in love a couple times in those years. I drank and fought, became a parent in those years. I wrote less frequently.

Why did I stop? I honestly don't know; but if I did I probably wouldn't admit the reason. Why don't I call my friends more often? Why aren't I a better person? As you've read above -- I'm more concerned with other things.