When I Write About Giving Up Writing Poem by Shalom Freedman

WHEN I WRITE ABOUT GIVING UP WRITING

When I write about giving up writing,
I am not giving it up
I am instead trying to find another justification for continuing-

I am not giving up then-
If the whole effort is futile
If in the end it will mean nothing
If I despair of it even as I continue it
Still
I will not give up.
I cannot give up.

What else do I have, after all, except the writing?
After all these years of giving my life to it
What other work could ever mean so much?

Even if I fail in it
It is who I am
And what I can do.

I am writing again now
What else can I do?