Why This?

Once again that same old same old.

"Why do you write what you do?"
According to some of my anonymous readers, my poems are weird and incomprehensible; my stories are twisted; my descriptive pieces are too detailed; my ramblings about life are really eccentric and in general my stuff is too complicated to read.

The experts, on the other hand, find my writing "really interesting" and advise that my non-fiction is "strong and vibrant" and that my poems are "gnomic" and "aphoristic" with "compelling visual imagery" and that I should leave everything else and concentrate on the poetry and descriptive pieces.

More believing of my anonymous readers, however, I ask myself:
Why do I write?

I can’t sing a sunset or paint my fears; I cannot dance my experiences or play the rhythms of my children on musical instruments. As a child in school, I used to envy my talented friends their natural gifts of expression. When Gargi danced Shiva’s tandav, my heartbeat changed to the pulse of her feet; when Amrita sang "Bridge Over Troubled Waters," my insides melted; when I saw Pinkie's “Rainy Day,” I wanted to pour black poster paint all over mine.

But I never envied anybody’s writing.

So I write because I can.

As for why I write what I do,
I write myself. That's why.