You asked me for my why, and I wrote it down all at once
It took me a minute or two to scratch out the stuff of it.
But then you asked me, “Why this why? Why is it this?”
And I sat down another day and wrote it all down again,
With other words, other thoughts, other dreamful reasons.

And once more you asked me to find it, find my why, dig.
I shook my head to another day and slept on it some more,
My night terrorized by questions and visions born in sweat.
Tackling the demons once more, I penned papers on papers,
I tore at ink and line and wrote my why and why not plus ten.

“Look, “ I said, “How much can I rip from my guts? How deep?”
She asked me why I ask, why not tell, why not the whole truth.
So I laid it down, tore it up, scratched it out, pored hungry art
And spoke it to an empty screen with nothing on it but me.
I stuttered and blinked, twitched it out to those who’d hear it.

Then I pressed play and watched it, me speaking my story.
And my why tensed between my teeth, flexed in my arms,
Trapped in my shoulders and neck, eked out in strained tones,
Like a trumpeter’s taut lips finding the sweet spot of wept wind
Forced air, struggling to the notes, hit them at the right pitch.

“No, no, no, noooo! That’s not it at all!” I screamed at myself,
My own image on the screen, speaking to no one at all,
Inside my head, looking at me, at her, the one tossing words
Carelessly, aimlessly, trying so hard, not trying at all, not enough.
You, I, we held back, kept it to ourselves, and gave up too little.

So I went back to my pen and cursed the notebook’s sheets,
Clean lined and beckoning, and with tensile fingers curled,
Anticipation clawing at my bloodied brain, I wrote and wrote,
The beginnings, hunger, anger, stubbornness, sorrowing quest
And tripping time’s prison, my why written, I locked it up, keyless.