Why I write

In the quiet corners 

Of a world not built for me 

I found solace 

In the silent symmetry of words 

my body, 

a landscape of unspoken battles 

each scar a story 

too raw for spoken tongues 

but poetry— 

poetry cradles them softly 

I write because 

my voice has been 

a ghost in crowded rooms 

where eyes glaze over 

differences they cannot 

fathom 

because 

in the stutter and stumble 

of sentences that never 

quite fit my mouth 

poems become the fluent language 

of my being 

because 

as a non binary soul 

in a binary world 

poems are the places 

where gender dissolves 

into something 

fluid 

and 

free 

because 

as someone disabled 

in spaces not designed 

for my presence 

poems are the ramps 

and rails 

that invite me in 

because 

as a being neurodivergent 

in a line-straight world 

poems are the patterns 

the repetitions 

the swirls 

that make sense 

when little else does 

because 

from a working class cradle 

I was told 

my voice was 

too small 

too insignificant 

but in poetry 

I am colossal 

I am the echo of ancestors 

who could not read 

but whose stories 

live 

in me 

I write 

because it is how 

I take up space 

it is how 

I scream 

it is how 

I whisper 

it is how 

I tell the universe 

I am here 

I matter 

and I will not 

be silenced 

- in every verse, a rebellion 

in every word, a world

Aspen Greenwood