POETRY – FOWC & RDP

Why do I bother to write?

Each word drifts into the void—unanswered, unheard.
They vanish like smoke—transparent. Gone.
Not because they’re sacred or encrypted in G-14 code—
but because no one’s looking. No one’s listening.

There was a time when that silenced me.

“Why speak?”
“No one listens.”
“Does it even matter?”

Do you matter?

Some days, that voice won.
It slid into my bones, curled behind my ribs, and whispered me into silence.
Told me I was just scribbling into darkness.
That my pain was recycled. That I was nothing new. Nothing needed.

But even then, something fought back.

A flicker. A breath that refused to die.

I had forgotten why I came here.
Lost the thread. Lost myself in fog.

But I remember now.

I write because I must.
To survive the war within.
Not the loud, cinematic kind—
but a silent, grinding, bloody war.
Fought in mirrors. In 3 a.m. thoughts.
In doubts that circle like vultures.
In guilt that clings like wet ash.

We don’t talk about it. Not really.
But we all feel it.
That private battlefield behind the eyes.
The endless rummage through our own wreckage,
hoping to find something still whole. Something still true.

I’m not here to prove I exist.
I’m here to understand why I keep breathing through the wreckage.
Not seeking praise—seeking peace.

To sift through ruins.
To bleed on the page.
To let the shards of memory cut me clean,
and the embers of regret burn what no longer serves me.

There is hope in the fire.

And I have not walked alone.
Some of you were there—watching, listening,
fighting your own quiet wars beside me.
We faced Lunacy like pilgrims, eyes wide, daring her to do her worst.

You stayed.

For that, I owe everything.

So I write.
Not because I’m whole—
but because I’m becoming.

Page after page.
Sentence after sentence.
Word after word.

Until the silence breaks.

And something holy rises
from the blood.