The Power of a Pen

My art is dying

The fact that many people have the audacity to say
That they fluently speak a language
Only to turn and say that
Not only the literature of our native language
But the words of the world
Have no meaning

The history of how we have communicated our feelings
Deep and shallow
Right or wrong
Passionate or indifferent
Full of wonder or of certainty
Filled with happiness and light or with anger and scorn
Spoken shining with the brightness of new life or with the darkness on the brink of death
Overflowing with seas of sweet dreams or drowning in oceans of haunting fears

To say with a stubborn scoff
That all of those writings
Handmade by these literacy legends
Are boring, and lifeless, and dull, and tiring, tedious, stupid

Yes, please tell that to:
William Shakespeare
Edgar Allan Poe
James Mercer Langston Hughes
Stephen Schwartz
Nelle Harper Lee
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Maya Lou Angelou
I'm sure they'd love to hear it
Seeing that they've gone down as a major part of history
Which is more than you'll likely ever be able to accomplish

These poems, these short stories, these novels
These precious and nearly biblical scriptures of carefully crafted sentences
Beautifully written words
That dance off the pages and come alive

Books
Plots and poems and plays
Musicals and so much more
Capturing you in a golden mist as you enter another world
And let you escape the horrors that surround you
As you journey along someone else’s thoughts
Walk down their road
Feel their footsteps
See through their eyes
Interpret their creativity and make it your own

You can craft the art yourself as well
These amazing tools given to us by our ancestors
Tools you can play with
Like language
Meaning
Sounds
Spelling
Words and inflection

Passed down for hundreds of years
Almost like a family heirloom
That you can share with the whole world
This invaluable, this priceless, this exquisite thing we call literature
That many people of today's youth look down upon
Thinking it’s worth nothing

My art is dying

And it scares me
Because when something dies it’s really hard
Or sometimes even impossible
To bring back into the world of the living

So today I ask of you to strengthen your mind with the power of words
The power of a pen
Express yourself on paper or on any sort of document
Put it somewhere special and keep it safe

My favorite part of writing is when it sounds awful in the beginning
And I get to work with it and spend time with it
And pick away the weeds and thorns
Working hard and anxiously waiting for it to bloom
Into the final product
That has grown by the seed of the love of literature
That was once planted in my heart

My art is dying

And this is my attempt to save it
Preserve it
Protect it with my heart

My art is dying

And I refuse to let the world banish it to history
I won’t let it be gone forever
I can't let it forever rest in sleep
Not without a fight
I swear it on my life