By: Sam Morris (First semester poetry)
Don’t write what you think you should write.
Don’t write what you think people want to read.
Don’t write what others tell you to
or what you think will sell.
Don’t write to win awards
or to be famous
or immortal.
Don’t write to impress people with your brilliance
weirdness
artistry
preciousness.
Write what you think about, over and over.
Write what obsesses and possesses you.
Write for yourself.
Write what you were born to write
what burns within you.
Write that never-ending gnawing thought
the one that won’t let you go
in the night.
Write that acidic washing-machine-in-the-gut feeling.
Write the feverish blaze that snakes through your veins, only to backtrack
snaking again.
Write the very words that choke you.
Write, write, and write
some more.
Write what matters to you, and never stop writing.
You might just make the world better.
Even if you don’t, you will make yourself better.
You will know that you told the story of you,
that you were true.
You will know you made something new and placed it in this world.
You conceived it
birthed it,
nurtured it.
And you set it free.
Obra/Artifact 