Voices fill her mind, so she writes.
She feels as if her head will explode, so she writes.
The words just won’t form in her mouth, so she writes.
Moving the pencil is as natural as breathing, so she writes.
Her notebooks have too many blank pages, so she writes.
The story hasn’t been told yet, so she writes.
Her friends are waiting, breath bated, so she writes.
She can’t find a talent she likes more or criticism she accepts better, so she writes.

{written after studying Psalm 81}

We shall all fall.

We are all to die, because of our treason.
I look about me. They are all placid; they do not understand.
I shake one, then another.

“Do you not understand?” I cry. “I am doomed! You are doomed! We shall all die! We must get out, get free, get forgiveness!”

I am standing in a forest, but I can’t see the trees for the vines growing around me. Above me, below me, to all sides, the vines grow and block out the smallest glimpse I can have of the trees. The air is hot and stifling, but every now and then a breeze comes through. It smells sweet and flowery, and it lifts my sticky hair off my forehead. It shifts the vines for a second, and for that brief second I see into heaven. The vines close, cutting of the breeze, the forest, and the flowers. But the forest continues to call out to me.