Essays
You wish me to write,
To create something grand.
Something for a purpose that I have yet to understand.
Something I don’t care for,
Nor something I like.
But still I am forced,
Against my will to decide.
Let me write of love,
Let me write of hate,
Of anger and pain and times that have changed.
Let me write my soul,
Put my heart on paper.
Allow me; tell you of my past,
Of the terror of the future,
But do not force me to write of a stranger,
Of another’s joy or their love.
Do not give me their views of life
And tell me to write what it means.
For I know not what the story means to them.
You may see life and joy,
In words that meant pain.
You say it is about the beauty of nature
But what if it is about destruction,
The cruelty of humanity?
How the world has fallen apart?
How death may be but at last a reprieve?
You see joy and love and wonder.
But what if the view is different to the author?
What if the sun was not truly so bright?
But instead to them was a horrid, scheming light?
What if the green of the world did not mean pure and clean?
But instead meant horrors of envy unseen?
Tell me then the truth.
Why do you not write this yourself?
You cannot, can you?
Because you also know not of their truths.
You know of yours
And of your own bias.
But you know not what they meant,
The author of this story.
The author of this life.
And yet you break apart every little line.
A poet writes to tell their soul,
And a poet’s enemy is an essay.
Copyright © Emma-Leigh Tyndall | Year Posted 2025
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