i want to be a writer: a poem

i want to be a writer.

I just graduated from University and I’m lost.

Now this isn’t anything groundbreaking.

Everyone gets lost when they just get out. I don’t know where I want to go, or what I want to do.

I was a carer from ages fifteen to twenty-one.

I didn’t think too much about what I wanted to be back then. I was surviving day by day, because getting through the day was difficult enough.

So it was natural at the time,

to imagine everyone else had it easier.

Everyone else seemed to be moving on so fast, already getting jobs, already moving out, already on holiday, getting married (!) etc. — you almost feel as if you’re a wooden screw in the IKEA wardrobe called Life and that God splintered how you’d fit in with the rest of the world; so he decided to deal with it later, and now you’re sitting in the Universes’ miscellaneous drawer gathering dust,

not sure whether He’s got a plan or just forgotten you.

I want to be writer.

Since I was a kid, it was my only dream. I want to write things with conviction and energy. I want to write stories that are compelling and make people feel as if they’ve come home.

But what happens when you’re lost?

When you’re staring at the face of homelessness, failure, poverty - whatever it is. Is chasing after something like that realistic?

I can say I want to be writer, but it doesn’t guarantee that I will.

We all want to be important, change the world. But it’s hard - and it doesn’t pay the bills or put food on the table. And a lot of the time we care too much about what other people think about us. We all want to look good for our families, for our friends. And it makes you think.

Should we trust in God, or get ourselves out of the drawer, survive on our own?

The funny thing is, you can do both.

You can trust in a God, an entity, whatever it is you believe in. But it can only take you so far.

So this is what I'm promising myself.

I have remember that I’m still young. I have to remind myself that this is only the beginning. Maybe if we were more open about it, we wouldn’t feel as alone. So I’m being open about it. I’m terrified, and I don’t know what I am doing.

Maybe one day I’ll be the writer I always wanted to be, or maybe I won’t.

I promise myself that no matter how horrible, how terrible my work is — I will be proud of it.

Because even if it's garbage - it’s my garbage.

Because I wrote it. No one else.

And this is for anyone who is reading — who may or may not be, as lost as I am.

Be proud of your garbage. One day it won’t be.

I want to be writer,

but what do you want to be?