I Will Write Poem by katherine ochoa

I really love people

but maybe that is because

my main interaction with people is through books.

How beautiful people are through books

The words bring life even if the real person falls flat.

Maybe it’s because to be writer requires empathy –

to write the details others would miss.

To be a writer is to kill apathy.

Sometimes I wonder if people who don’t read are yet living.

How can anyone spend a meaningful day not reading?

Books are what kept me alive

They alone were the only thing that gave me faith in humanity.

I have to write again, I have to do art again.

I have to do

So that I can be – So that I can fully exist

I have to create so that I can become

Until my liberties are forced out of my hands

And I am stripped of my dignity.

Until my hands are tied behind my back

And my head held against the soil

And I am spit at and told I am worthless.

I. Will. Write.

I will continue to create because I am worth something damn it.