Midnight Scribbles

What makes me a writer?

Is it the letter I labor over before sending them home to my love? Or perhaps the local coffee shop, whose couch I often occupy as I quietly sip my Chai latte. Maybe it's the glasses that I wear, thick black frames to hide my young and vulnerable face behind. My glasses draw the attention away from my probing blue eyes to the flowers made of glitter on the sides.

Perhaps it's the clothes I wear; eclectic band shirts, random-stuff shirts and shirts from the Harley Davidson brand. Maybe it's the army jacket bought one visit at a local Goodwill store or maybe it's something different, something special, something more. Maybe it's that one pair of jeans, faded beyond belief with more areas torn and exposed instead of mended and clean. Maybe it's the wannabe Vans or my pink Converse - or perhaps my rainbow socks and my graphic underwear.

Or maybe it's the determination to get up every day, head out into that world and face it instead of cowering in some desolate corner that makes me a writer. My experiences - the places I've been, the people I've seen, the books I've devoured and the movies I've danced over; the hardships, the joys, the good and the bad, beautiful and ugly experiences that are out there in the world to possess the knowledge of - all of it. The past I've had, the present I'm living in, and the future that I dream of.

Maybe it's all of these things and maybe it's none of them. Maybe some silent muse sits upon my shoulder, wandering off every now and again to leave me sitting, with my pen poised and only ink dripping from it onto the otherwise pristine or filled page, a black oblivion. When it comes back, I am it's willing slave, listening as it jabbers incoherently in my ear in a tone so sweet it makes my heart ache and I write what comes to me, revising as I let my pen merrily trip along the lines of the paper.

So in short, I don't know.

I never have and I doubt I ever will.

But I know have a talent and so I'll use it. Even if not every attempt is beautiful and perfect, I will write until my last days. Hopefully one day I'll get paid for my lines upon lines of words.