You are the reason

I wake up every day.

No. Reset.

You are the reason

I get out of bed.

I wake up

because I’m not dead yet,

but I get up

I eat, drink, bathe

I cook, clean, run errands

I read, write, sing, dance

I listen to music

I laugh at jokes

I work

at being

the type of person

of whom you can be proud

someone

you want to be around and

share moments of your life.

You are the reason

I grab the phone

every time I hear

your ringtone

or a text notification,

the reason

I smile

the moment I open my eyes

ready to start the day,

ever joyful simply

because you are.

When I was younger, I had hell at home, abusive mother, oblivious father, and I shut down completely, I didn't feel pain, rarely felt joy I was a bundle of rage and hate and fear. I had gotten so used to this that i forgot what love and happiness felt like. My why came into my life when I saw him sitting alone, I went to see if he was okay and I could see in his eyes he was broken like me. We started talking, about small things, interest we shared, people we both hated, and at some point he brought my joy back, I started smiling more, I was less angry, I started eating the way I need to again, laughing, living as much as I could at this time.. He made me feel human, he gave me feelings of safety, He is the reason I am still here, breathing. He gave me love, he gave me joy. Things haven't always been smooth with us, but we've always come back to each other. I know this is a cliche story but, I love him, he is my why even today, seeing his smile, hearing his problems, helping him heal as hes helping me, its my reason to keep trying, its my smile, its my sky full of stars, its my life.

My, primary "Why" for getting out of bed probably isn't much different than the "Whys" of most my fellow Americans. I am in debt, lots of debt. In fact, every time the bills become due I feel like someone shoved a dildo coated in sandpaper, wrapped in razor wire, and dipped in battery acid up my posterior sans lube or a kiss. So, I drag my arse out of bed and trudge my permanently raw and chapped ass to work.

Other than debt, I admit I possess a morbid sort of curiosity which is regularly fed by the absurdly painful syphilis infected monkey hauling trainwreck that is the human race. I can't help myself. I am too invested in watching what stupid shit us hairless monkeys (some also syphilis infected) may do this time.

For example, for thousands of years we have been trying to get what we want by way of war. The reasons for the war may vary, but in the end the ant dick sized political, financial, religious, or geopolitical gains are almost never worth the losses in life and resources. The only exceptions of note being the Civil War, the Sexual Revolution, and the never ending battle between the Coyote and Road Runner. Think about it. Even an inbred hamster will stop going for the electrified food bowl after it has been zapped a couple of times. Not us, nope. We keep thinking war will get us what we want no matter how many times we experience the same electrifyingly painful consequences as they set fire to our pubes on their way to frying our collective daddy and mommy parts. I can see the wheels turning in our world leader's wee whittle bwains as they are reminded how history has proven that war almost never gets the victor what they really want. Of course, the politicians may nod solemnly, but when the cameras are turned off they almost always say, "What the hell, lets see what happens after the nuclear winter, we'll sort shit out then." Of course, they're assuming anyone will be left on this cold cinder of a planet to even give a fuck. It's equally tragic and riveting, but still, I can't stop watching.

I've heard it argued that our artistic creativity is enough to redeem us. It may have been, but as I watch what the various forms of classify as, "Art" or "Culture" these days I have to laugh. Where once we had Davinci, Beethoven, and Shakespeare we now have Justin Beiber, Taylor Swift, and whatever hacks wrote the Twilight, Fifty Shades, and Harry Plopper (not a typo) series. If these are our artistic saving graces we are so fucked. Still, I watch on for the same reason some people will pay to watch a sword swallower. I subconsciously want to see things go wrong.

Aside for my need to pay the bills, the reason why I get out of bed in the morning is to watch Darwin's theory about humanity be proven wrong. Darwin optimistically assumed human evolution would always tend towards progress. If the 21st century is any indication, human evolution has backed over a fire hydrant, plowed through a litter of puppies, and ran over grandma. Sorry Charlie, we've backed up almost to where we can bump uglies again with our Niedenthal cousins.

i am Chaos

forgive me

but you

dont know

me.

You havent my heart

smile

love

knowledge

experience

mistakes

sin

or rage.

i live for Chaos

others

the stuggle

the joy

the hardship.

-I exist for the entertainment of others.

I don’t have a why so much as a driving force.

Frankly, when I ask myself

“Why am I still here?”

One word comes to mind.

Love. It is because I love.

Simply. Purely.

Sometimes I hate myself because of it.

Yet, it’s always there, the compassion, the honesty, the hope for humanity’s outcome. Always there, even when I am fed up with all the nonsense that is happening in the world right now.

Always a glimmer of hope in the back of my brain that somehow humans will stop repeating their mistakes and start learning from them on a global level.

Love for others is my driving force, the reason I write, the reason I am still here and if my life lessons can help change another’s life to do better,

that made it worthwhile.

Love is always the answer.

Why? Why keep going? I've asked myself that countless times. I mean after all, what is the point? I still don't know. And I don't know that I ever will, even after this. And I'm okay with that. Most days. And other times it's like a loose screw, bouncing around in my brain, just looking for a fucking hole that fits. Anything. Anything close to concrete that makes any kind of sense. And it bounces. And it bounces. Hits. And it sticks. Tries to settle in. And then the thread slips. It goes cock-eyed. Gets plucked out. Starts bouncing all over again. Because nothing quite seems to fit. And I can't help but wonder if it isn't all bullshit. But the sky was pretty tonight. And my dogs expect food in the morning. Maybe I can piss someone off tomorrow. There's always reasons to keep going.

Holden Caulfield wanted to be a catcher in the rye. He had been asked to name one thing he liked. He could only think of an acquaintance of his at prep school, who had been bullied and jumped to his death from an upper story window. Holden thought, in the moment he was asked what he liked, of a boy who hadn't even known him, had just been a face he remembered because of how hard he hit the ground.

I write. In the same way Holden wanted to catch the children in the rye, I want to catch every word I can ever hope to dream. I write ravenously, opening the Notes app on my iPhone, an insomniac starved of deep sleep, who is finally released into midnight. I write out poems that make little to no sense to anyone else but myself. Like Holden's incessant rambling about phonies, I'm sure people read my poems and think, god, get some help already.

I was once called by my ex-boyfriend, "the most uninteresting person he knew." I was boring, a depressed, mousy girl with no future laid before me, no red carpet leading to any award ceremony. I started writing in a journal, little notes to myself, to remind myself I was still a person. It's hard, being one. I could have drawn a noose, but I flew to the west coast instead. I started a new life during quarantine, joined a writing website, and earned wings from merely existing. Finally, I wasn't somebody's ghost, I was only myself, and for the first time, that was enough.

I write raw. I wake up in the morning and only strive to make myself known. I write as if each word could make me better, whole, not sick. It doesn't, because it doesn't work that way, but it gives me a purpose I had never known I could acquire.

During quarantine, I wrote about only having a bottle of champagne from the "before times" in my fridge, depressed and angry at having nobody. But now, I can say that life has significantly improved for me, mostly due to writing, partially because I am catching myself from falling every day - catching myself in the raw, like rye, but more healed.

I find my why in those I love unconditionally. My wife and children. In my hardest moments when I came close to writing my own ending, their faces are what kept me here.

An entry from my book of poems "Words Unspoken"

I can’t stay for me today, so I hit my knees and begin to pray,

I pray for my children, that their mom won’t leave them now,

I pray my family won’t have to feel pain, when they learn I took an early way out,

I pray that my wife won’t have to shed a tear when she finds out I am no longer here,

I pray no one has to answer that call,

When they see a lifeless body that ended it all,

I pray this prayer knowing if I had my way I would already be gone,

Reminding myself these are the reasons I am still holding on.

A smile helps me get out of bed. The smile of an eight year old. Then, I retreat to another room with a cup of hot water. Mornings are not an easy time. Sunlight on my head, the wind on my face. Recently roller skating has given the week a joyful edge. Stretching is also good, removing a kink from the neck. The why is embodied. It is granular.

Appreciate the question about our whys. Feels like a smile, or a kind note, or almost like a friend asking if you made it home. It is this question which drives my return to words. The why is a link. A link from foot to floor, from sky to ground, from me to you. The words are a way to make this link, to show the connections, and to take a magnifying glass to the breaks and repair them.

Why, the word tells us it is a question awaiting a response. We may or may not always like the answer, but the questions are answered. Although, surprisingly enough, I have found getting an answer leads to more question. In essence, the why's never end.

Why do I sleep?

Why do I sigh?

Why do laugh?

Why do I cry?

Why do I breathe?

Why do I eat?

Why do I work?

Why do I write?

Why am I here?

Why is the night quiet?

Why is daylight interesting?

Why is the universe endless?

Why do humans instill fear on other humans?

Why love when the love will leave one day?

Why ask why when the answer doesn't work for me?

These are just a few of my why's.

Most people require eight hours of sleep. I get by with three or four. I sigh out of frustration when something goes terribly wrong. I laugh because it feels good and helps to release tension. I cry, but you will never know when, where or how (the other three-question words).

I often, before sleep for the past two years, talk to God, asking him why he still lets me breathe the air around me. I keep saying I'm ready for him to take me anytime. For now, I

breathe so I can do daily rituals, or challenges such as this. Breathi9ng helps to help me do things and doesn't require a conversation.

I eat when the moment strikes but not as much as I used to and generally one meal a day takes care of my belly's needs.

I write to write. To inform, to entertain, to create a moment that hopefully will be remembered long after I'm gone. And I feel that's why I am here. Not to change the world or how people think or act but rather, through writing, give them their own alternative universe to play in until they finish the pages of the story. where perhaps they'll whisper< "I can relate to that."

Night and daylight, like black and white, different, yet in re4spect, the same. Siblings of a different sort. Daylight means the sun rises from one place to go to another, leaving details seen to be in awe of though many take it for granted. The colorful sunrise, the rainbows that appear, the heat it gives off and, in that daylight, traffic races blindly, people hustle and bustle from one place to another until the night takes over, squeezing out the sun leaving us with a blackened sky and near-perfection of what quiet really sounds like.

Therein, the blackened sky above us all, splattered with twinkling eyes holds adrift a universe many will never see beyond books and movies. But it's out there to be explored, to "Go where no one has gone before", into the unknown, new worlds beyond what we know today. Perhaps other life that are similar or the same as us (always believed we can't be the only life in this galaxy).

I never could understand why the weak ones get bullied by the strong ones. Ego perhaps. Something to do. Bigger, stronger, faster maybe. Yet there are a good portion of the weak ones who grow up to be the ones with the intellect to solve the problems facing humanity's existence. Perhaps one day before I take my last breath, the words bigotry, jealousy, greed, and racial indifference will be stricken from the dictionaries of the work, and we have a pure equality of each person's worth as a person and not a punching bag for sport.

Love. A four-letter word that is supposed to solve all our emotional needs. Love leaves us all one way or the other. A breakup or a death. It leaves a void only you can understand while others give their thoughts or condolences. Spend forty years with one person only to have them die leaving a dinner table, with one plate instead of two. Never easy to get used to and many never will.

This brings me to the last one, why ask why for what I have put here you may or may not agree and that's when new questions get asked and the why of it all starts over again.

There are a ton of "why's" out there. Why is that?