“Why?”

Because it’s as true as anything can be.
Because it conjures a smile from my lips.
Because I will it to be so.
Because its beauty brings me to my knees.
Because its sweetness makes dance the butterflies in my stomach.
Because how else am I going to get up in the morning?
Because I love her.
Because I love him.
Because that’s where all the scientific knowledge available to me points.
Because I want to keep my mind unclouded.
Because I have deserved this for a long time.
Because there’s only one way to have any fun around here.
Because it would have made my father proud.
Because I am afraid.
Because I am not afraid.
Because how else will I remember how it feels to be alive?
Because I want to find myself. (“You’re right there, man. Get over it!”)
Because I can’t stop thinking.
Because it couldn’t have happened any other way.
Because trees speak to me when they know no one else is listening.
Because I will for as long as I live be indebted to music.
Because I have ridden on the back of a behemoth and seen the world in ways you have yet to imagine.
Because I can.
Because Walt Disney helped to make my childhood rich.
Because I love money.
Because I am told I would like the man who has hair the color of a ripe orange rind.
Because I like it when Sondheim plays with strange melodies.
Because it’s sexy.
Because it’s a semiautomatic pistol whose trigger I have yet to squeeze.
Because Aristotle is better than Plato.
Because almost anyone is better than Kant.
Because her poetry warms my heart and makes it sing before breaking it.
Because Sublime is terrible.
Because I have such fond memories of staying there.
Because the air smells cleaner over here.
Because the world was on pause for two years.
Because it increases my will to live.
Because I hate him.
Because I am hungry.
Because I am thirsty.
Because I am horny.
Because I have every reason to think I should be good at this.
Because I need to feel.
Because it’s too hot.
Because these three steaks are all I have left.
Because I want to be rich and famous.
Because I want to be a better person.
Because I want to be a better writer.
Because I want to be a better musician.
Because I want to be a better lover.
Because I like to defy the odds.
Because there aren’t many things that would please me more.
Because I haven’t seen it yet.
Because there’s more to life than any one thing.
Because I like the phrase “sweaty-toothed madman.”
Because I’ve been cultivating my greed.
Because I’ve never read her work and yet still defend her.
Because I hate people.
Because I crave intimacy.
Because it took much too long for me to discover suspenders.
Because I once dreamed about it.
Because I can’t escape the feeling that I’m wasting time.
Because it took me more than 30 years to get here.
Because freedom is what I value most.
Because there is still so much I haven’t done.
Because I’ve got straight edge.
Because I still have something to prove.
Because it’s not easy being a god.
Because the sun has come up and this day belongs to me.
Because tomorrow also belongs to me.
Because I deny the Holy Ghost.
Because I know better.
Because I should go to the beach more often.
Because the music I write is worth hearing.
Because the stories I write are worth reading.
Because my father was in MENSA.
Because I love the sound of crunching guitars just as much as I love the soaring sound of a bow on strings.
Because I have to be up early.
Because I want to deserve my own love.
Because I am confident that I was born at the right time.
Because I no longer believe very much in certainty.
Because I have only this life to live.
Because there is so much left to say.
Because I am not yet living up to my potential.
Because to do so would mean achieving my loftiest goals.
Because my success in the world means more to me.
Because I like to maintain my control.
Because I am proud of what I’ve written and what I’ve composed.
Because I am never bored.
Because I am entitled to nothing.
Because I am the only one who must believe in myself.
Because milk will be my beverage of choice until I can drink it no more.
Because I worry too much.
Because I am too hard on myself.
Because I may make the last important contribution to ethics for hundreds of years.
Because I love to play.
Because I want one day to step foot on Antarctica.
Because Leviathan continues to hold me in awe.
Because I’ve got 99 reasons and a complaint is nowhere to be seen.

With care,

~ Grigori