This manifesto may be coming late, but maybe it could only come now because my reasons are many, they are scattered, and they’re still unfolding.

Writing is not just something I do, it is who I am. It is the place I go when the world grows heavy, it is the mirror I hold up to myself, it is the only language that lets me live twice.

I write to keep track of my life really.

I write to say the things I dare not say out aloud because someone once said: write as if your readers are already dead.

I write because it makes me feel untouchable; because damned be the consequences.

I write because my life is a mosaic of fragments, and words are the glue.

I write to trap time, to outlive myself, to press my fingerprints into eternity. So when everything else fades, when memory betrays me, when voices forget my name, my words will stand as proof that I was, that I am.

I write because my stories are mine, and no one else will tell them if I don’t.

I write because if I say it to you, speech bends it out of shape so it will not make any sense. On the other hand, silence buries them alive so writing is the only place they remain whole.

I write because the page is the only room that does not ask me to shrink.

Here, my words sprawl, they litter about. So when I write, it’s like I’m building a city of sentences where I can wander without losing myself.

I write because my mind is complicated, but my life itself is simple and the page is where both finally meet and recognize each other.

I write to mend what is broken.

I write to heal.. yet to dare, yet to defy gravity, yet to displace things and see if that’s how they’ll make sense.

I write because the page is where I live on my own terms. Because I refuse to be gagged by politeness.

I write because my stories are heavy, and I need to shed their weight. Because paper will not flinch at my fury or shrink at my despair.

I write because it won’t let me sleep.

I write because it is important.

I write because it is survival and to stop would be surrender.

I write because maybe I can say it better for those who doesn’t have the words. I write because someone, somewhere, might read and say ‘yes, that is exactly how it feels’. And in that recognition, neither of us will be alone.

I write so those close to me may glimpse the self I bury in daylight.

I write because you might not know me beyond my name, and beyond the time we spent together, even if you thought you did.

I write so the ones who thought they knew me

might finally admit they never did.

I write because sometimes the world feels too cruel, and sometimes too beautiful and I cannot carry either without spilling it somewhere.

I write because grief needs a language.

Because joy deserves a witness.

Because rage demands a weapon.

Because tomorrow leans on the records of today.

Because fragments long for a place to gather.

Because ordinary begs for its own eternity.

I write because I have questions.

I write because my shadows need to stretch somewhere when the sun is gone.

I write for the child I was, the one who swallowed much, who suppressed much. I write for every version of me that I’ve shed, and the ones I am yet to become.

I write to come plain, to face it head on, to call it what it is.

I write to wish, to dare.

I write because I feel.

I write because I hide.

I write to love without apology.

I write because names forgotten call to me, I write because I remember the ones who did not say goodbye.

I write because there are children I have not met, and there are ancestors I will never know, and words are the bridge between us.

I write for the strangers I will never meet, but whose souls might brush against mine through a single line and that way, they will no longer be strangers.

I write for the cities I’ve walked through, whose streets have memorized my footsteps but will never speak.

I write to see me and because someone, somewhere, might understand.

I write for myself. To remind myself I am still here.. so I do not forget where I came from no matter where I get to.

I write because it is my soul. Because silence will never be enough. Because on these pages, I exist fully, fiercely, and without apology. So do not ask me why I write. Ask me instead how I could ever stop when the page is the only place I am truly alive.

And so I write not to escape life, but to embrace it, and to carry my stories into the light.

This is why I write.

Because the words are all I have.

Because I’m conscious that I’m a co-creator with God.