Writing is my therapy

By Jessica Oakwood

The sound of my hands on the keys is like the

start of rainfall. It relaxes me, it’s

meditative. The blank document

a canvas on which I can

perform tricks.

Language is the trusty skateboard at my side.

or perhaps the words are the prestige in

a magic trick.

The butt of a joke

that isn’t meant to be funny.

I don’t feel truly myself

unless my hands are on the keys

processing my feelings on word processor

I question often if I really want to write

but when I do, I think of my two tattoos

an A and Z in Baskerville Old Face

one on each wrist.

Faded now over the years.

A well-worn reminder that I shouldn’t try to kill myself again

that I don’t always heed.

I don’t tell people that though

I just say I am a writer and that they

represent the alphabet

Happiness can be found

in the curve of a well crafted sentence

in the breakthrough of a piece

that makes you feel like sunlight

Is under your fingertips.

And then you find homes for these stories, poems, essays

like they are homeless hermit crabs looking for shells on the beach.

I wonder sometimes

what grounds people without a purpose

because for me, peace can always be found

in the eye of a blinking cursor

my hands playing the MacBook

like an instrument,

The sound of the keys tapping

a concerto.