Why I Write...part II

"No one wants to hear another story about a ghetto
child who escaped the hood. You've become that
Stringer Bell character from HBO's The Wire. Black
folks into personalities like Barksdale or Marlo
Stanfield, man; you've outgrown your audience. No one
cares about the stuff you write about now. You used to
be relevant when you wrote about hip hop, prisons and
the street life. But now you write about Darfur and
Katrina. Niggahz don't care about that shit anymore,
man, and white folks never will. Tupac's dead. Malcolm
X is dead. Nat Turner is dead. And so are
you."---Annonymous

I used to write so that someone would be touched by my
words, possibly even motivated by them. There was
something romantic about the idea that my words would
live on after me. There was something both naïve and
profound about believing my work mattered in this
universe. As a young adult, I always wanted to one day
inspire someone the way the words of Malcolm X once
inspired me. I wanted people to feel the passion in my
words the way I felt the passion in Tupac's words. I
no longer have this urge.

I write now because I have to. I have become a man
screaming in the woods at three o'clock in the
morning. Not because he expects to be heard. Not
because there's a chance the paramedics will happen by
and notice him. But because he has broken his ankle
and screaming helps him deal with the pain. I write
now because the pain I feel when I see injustice choke
away the future of my people is too unbearable. It
feels like a rabid wolf is gnawing away at every bone
inside my chest with malicious deliberation. Screaming
isn't enough anymore. So I write--because I can't
sing. I write, because I can't rap. I write because I
can't act.

It doesn't matter if people hear me anymore.

I must write until the pain subsides.

--M. leTerrance