I love writing poetry because it's pretty. I love writing pretty.

Sometimes when I prepare to write, I feel the same sensation wash over me as if my toes were curling over the brink of a high cliff, my gaze peering downward into a dark pond, and I anxiously wonder, will the water prove deep enough? Will my words be satisfactory?

I write because I love it, not because I excel at it.  But because I write, I shall slowly excel at it.

I write so others might contemplate things out of the ordinary. I write to make people feel—to cause laughter and tears, to cause anger at injustice. I write so the world will imagine and wonder at crazy, incredible truths. I write to have a tiny bit of influence on a universal conscience.

At the core of love is validation. It is what gives love power.
For when love is given away, validation seeps in and expands in the heart of the recipient, filling up every empty, dark corner. It is a wonderful, light, consuming feeling we long for, and once found, we hope—even expect—it will forever remain. But there are times when that most precious love is revoked, and a hard scab forms over the empty hole. Though this scab is both healing and protective, it is the reason why validation from future love may not seep in so easily, no matter how wanting the heart.

Only a writer would slap a bumper sticker on her car that read, 'Seriously, I'd rather be working'.