Born To Write

My ink is the articulation that flows freely from the womb
of expression. I’ve lived the everyday hustle
and survived the reoccurring struggle
of broken dreams
poor themes
and rode the railroad of survival


to destinations where hopeful promises
were never what they seemed.

I’ve seen hungry eyes dilate through centuries
of starvation and I’ve heard angry minds
bow to the applause
of determined ovations;
I’ve watched homeless souls search
the fields of anxious streets
for new shelters of hope; I’ve heard desperate silence
disrupt into new energies of violence
and I’ve witnessed through this air
many faces of strength evaporate
into disrupted fragrances of fear. And their voices
have given birth to my words,

because I was born this way;
I was conceived with the ink of poverty
hemorrhaging through my mind;
I was born to write for the child who challenges
new strategies of believing with the victory
of achieving; I was born to write for the eyes
that blink new illustrations of inspiration
and through the translation of my heart
I was born to write the cure
for the unspoken.

I breathe poetry in every emotion I’ve inhaled
and through the nostrils of influence
I’ve written the realities of those who have suffered
on the cold, harsh roads of a poor society’s soil
because I have lived these words
and I have felt these words
I was born this way;
I was born to write.


© 2010
Tarringo T. Vaughan