What We Stay Alive For

The other day, I came across a question on Threads that stopped me mid-scroll:

“Is poetry your escape or your confrontation?”

It hit too close to home to keep scrolling. I sat with it. Let it echo a bit. And I realized the answer—at least for me—is both.

Poetry is the door and the mirror. I step outside myself to see inside more clearly. It feels like escape—drifting into metaphor, sheltering behind simile—but every line leads me back to a truth I’ve been avoiding.

Writing has never been a luxury. It’s been survival. I’ve written in hospital waiting rooms. In parked cars outside homes I no longer live in. While nursing a baby who doesn’t care how empty I feel. And somehow, the page always offers a strange kind of clarity.

So no, poetry isn’t escape from. It’s escape into the confrontation I’ve delayed, into the ache I’ve dressed in rhythm, into the questions I can't ask aloud.

Every time I write, I come back changed. Not always better. But more honest. A little more whole.

So if you’re wondering what to write today, don’t wait for inspiration to show up with perfect answers. Show up with your questions. With your fragments. With your quiet rage or reluctant hope.

"We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race... Poetry, beauty, romance, love—these are what we stay alive for."
— Dead Poets Society

We survive by doing what’s necessary. But we live when we create.

Because poetry isn’t just a mirror or an escape. It’s the proof that we’re still here. Still feeling. Still reaching for something beautiful even when it hurts.

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Prompt for Writers:

Is poetry your escape or your confrontation?

Write a piece—poem, essay, or short reflection—about how writing has helped you face something you couldn’t speak aloud.
What truths do you uncover when you write? What are you really running from—or into?