I have been struggling with writing lately. Sure, the goal was to keep one thing a day. But 24 hours is long with my family, that writing suffers. I have also asked myself, why write? Who cares? Or what will you gain or lose whether you write or no longer choose to write. The only answer and the one that keeps me going, is because I have to. It doesn’t matter if no one reads it. I do. It doesn’t matter if the words too are jumbled some days or poetry another day. It certainly doesn’t matter if I go through some days without words. All that matters and when the words come is to put them down.

So I write because I have to. I write because it’s my season to do so. I write because I have waited so long to understand what words do when they flow from my heart and my soul to this space that I choose to keep. I write because it gives me life, joy too. I write because it allows me to write in other ways that I never thought I could. I write because I am lit for it. I write because I am not consumed by it. I write because something about writing, like God, keeps me in awe. I write because I see words like a tree, an evergreen tree planted near streams of flowing water. I write because the words will find me, whether I choose to find them or not, they call and I obey. I write because I have a feeling for it. I write because writing promises nothing, not fame, nor fortune, nothing but torture, yet I choose the wounds and spaces it opens up for me. I write because it is healing for me, healing for my mind, healing for my head, healing for all that makes me whole. I write because I can’t seem to conceal my thoughts these days, so I put them in words. I write because if something should happen, there will always be words to help me make sense of it. I write because it pushes me beyond my limits, pushes me to meet myself beyond myself everytime. I write because it reminds me of the time I went sky diving, the fear, the thrill, the sheer happiness too of seeing a world from above the skies, reminds me that writing can once again become like that moment. I write too for the time when I smiled next to a lion, the greatest animal that ever lived. I write for that girl turned woman, who stayed fearless, knowing that she had conquered all that held her back. I write then for resistance, for the fight that I have to keep digging and fighting so many more women like me conquer their fears.

I write because people ask how do I do it all the time, how do I go from hollering at four children all day and then still producing work all day. I write because I come from a long line of women, whose stories are never told, who too hollered at children and made the most out of life as they saw it. I write for the one woman we all called Mama Ocha, the woman who raised me, taught me too the meaning of persistence, preserving, and everything in between possibilities and dreams that I know is within me. I write for Belle, my better me, shining from glory to glory and beyond, with all that is within her. I write for my boys, my gift from God, my God, the one I gift back to God, for because of them, I can be my best self. I write for the one who saved me, my crocodile of the north, the one who hailed from Nimo and Kaduna, to give me a life that is beyond my wildest dreams. I write for Onyelo, without her there is no me. I write for Okolie, the one who called me the apple of his eye, the one who gave me money to buy words early, the one on whose shoulders I continue to stand. I write for the future, for whatever the journey ahead may hold, I long to know you, to love you, to bask in you, knowing that words will be my guide through you. I write for my past, all the pain and hurdles that led to the outpouring of blessings that continue to surround me and all that I love. I write for goodness and mercy are with me, and I will continue to dwell in them and words for as long as I live. These are the reasons I write. The words come and I obey even if it means, I am I the only one that reads them. I will still write.