For What Poem by Jesse Ellsbury

The greatest thing about a job well-done,
a war that’s won,
or a song well-sung
is the knowledge that you tried,
you went out there and offered to cry
on stage
if it would charm them,
die on stage
just to disarm them
to stand there still until the crickets
cause the silence to crack and friction
and let the world come tumbling down,
you’re the one who put yourself out
there;
for what?

To show
what everyone knows
but is unwilling to admit:
we dance
because the words must come out
we advance
by being able to shout
and even if we stay home one night,
if we choose instead to write,
that’s just as good,
because writing is why we exist,
we let feelings out so we can persist
because we know that without
writing those feelings would boil and spout
from our mouths.
We write so that we will not have to doubt
that we just had the greatest idea
that, when written, would shatter our fears
and finally make everything clear.