Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotion know what it means to want to escape from these things. - T. S. Eliott*

So maybe by pouring out our emotions and personalities, overflowing and drowning pages in the ink of our words, maybe this is how some escape from themselves and feeling. By expulsing their repugnant selves, using the energy behind self-loathing or -fear to rid themselves of themselves. Perhaps that way we can live with ourselves and all our faults. They say when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back. Thus, deep self-reflection for too long reveals the abyss in us all. This deep, animal emptyness, clawing the sides of its pit, becoming and creating an overwhelming gnawing of absence. This feeling that you lack, this feeling of loss, of some unknown, perhaps this is what we poets write for. We write to find our unkown selves by escaping our known selves.