Look, maybe some of it is genetic destiny

luck of the gods, the right blow to the head at the right time

rearranging all those neurons in some particular pattern

but since when have you been one to believe fully

in something that cause and effect can't trace

something that science knows it can't prove?

God is getting you down, I think.

Listen: the reason I write well is because

in school I read books simply to read them

every day, through any class

where I could get away with it.

I read in crowded halls and quiet corners.

I read in locker rooms and libraries.

I read behind the four big timpani's in band,

I read during the songs, and sometimes I read during the parts

I had to play.

I read in English period, never what I was supposed to

but whatever I could get my hands on.

I read when it made me a target, made me outside,

made me my own worst enemy

and when the pain of it was too much I read for solace.

When I couldn't read I thought

about stories, told them to myself

always had words in mind for paper.

I write well because of the delighted squeal my mother gave

when I was so young and I sat and thought about

how words worked until

I understood them.

But destiny has nothing to do with it.

Look, you are not who you say you are

you are One Of Us. And we can do

amazing, wonderful, terrible things.

We can do them whenever we want.

We can do them even if we spent our lives

doing something else. It's not a straight path

there aren't two roads

one of them isn't any less traveled

than the other. Because all of it is unexplored territory

until it isn't.

I don't read now, as much as I used to.

I don't write as well as I could.

But I am who I am because I chose to be

this way. And I know how words fit on paper

because that's one of the things I want to know.

And while I'll sit and think about that as much as

anything else, while I'll hesitate and stall and stare at blank pages

until my eyes grow red and weary

I won't give up on it. Even though I could.