Pitter Patter of Tiny Marks

It's not up to me. Honestly. Whenever I pick up anything that makes a mark on anything else, I am no longer in control. 
These marks may look like English, or they may seem like Arabic, or perhaps they will be abstract images or wondrous doodles. I am never sure what I will give birth to until the first mark leaves my body and sits outside my mind on some kind of surface that my eyes can see but not always understand at first glance. 
Usually it's a heavy moment, full of expectations and heavy breathing. I give birth to something which has been living in me for weeks. Days. Hours. Or even centuries. I give birth, but I never really know what is going to come out, and I have finally learned to stop caring. 
Years ago, when I used to care - like a mother-in-law who might insist I had a boy - when I used to care about the exact identity of what I gave birth to, it ended up suffering great difficulties breathing, moving, seeing. These sad creatures never lived long. And, I had to admit to myself much later in life, I never loved them. They just sat there. They didn't move me to tears, laughter or joy. They had no tale to tell. It was my fault for trying too hard. For believing I could - and had the right - to control them even before they were born. For trying to make them into something I wanted. 
These tiny little bits of life we call marks, I was forcing them into forms and boxes and preconceptions. 
I stopped caring. Stopped caring what they would grow up to be. Stopped wanting to control them. Stopped squeezing the life out of them and force-feeding them mine. I started to back down. To get out of my way, to breathe, relax and the pushing got easy. The caring got easy and changed from force-feeding to nourishing. 
Now, when I pick up anything that makes a mark on anything that is accepting and willing to receive my marks, I simply release them. I pave the way. I let them soar out of me. 
These are the marks that live on. 
They are the ones I am most proud of. 
They are the ones I live for. 
I learned to let them breathe and in return they become my oxygen.

Fadwa