Why Do I Write?

it's hard to explain,
especially to strangers,
but you're a friend,
a fellow-reader,
so I'll try.
it's the awareness of my mortality
and the longing for eternity
which clash and echo
in my head and heart.
it's the tenseness of fancy
it's the looseness of desire
it's the breath of someone you love
but they don't even know.
it's the feeling of flying
it's the dream of exotic lands
its the compulsion of imagination
that makes me write.
how can I explain?
it's just that I believe
that every person I meet
is another opportunity,
another story,
waiting to be told.

I found this in an old Q book. For those who remember.