I’ve always been a poet, since fourth grade when my teacher introduced the idea that we could put things down on paper without the proper punctuation and still make people feel things. Poorly penned adjectives trying to explain feelings I didn’t understand in a shaky scrawl pairing down words I couldn’t spell started flowing from then. Notebook after notebook fell to my new habit, a journal of feelings not events.
I’ve been trying to write. First a journal, then a blog, and now on here as I struggle to get my feelings into the socially acceptable sentences. I’ve run out of things to write because I just can’t constrain what I’m trying to say in periods and commas, in mandatory capitals and neatly spaced paragraphs. Everything runs together, spitting and slurring and slipping into a jumble of breath separated only by one’s need for air, or silence.
So I will let it. I will share what I’ve smeared down on paper before, ages before that have never seen the light of day. I will share what I’ve written on my arms and on my thighs and on my eyelids. It’s raw and ragged and the purest form of art I can offer you, myself on a page.
Because I am not a writer.
I am a poet.
It’s praying for the sunshine
Hoping and Wishing
Needing just the warmth
Remaining optimistic
Smiling at the clouds
And the sun is late
In coming
And Sometimes
It’s Demanding from the sky
Cursing the clouds
Yelling at the rain
That soaks your tightened shoulders
Waging war against the above
With all the strength you have
Angry at the whole world
And the sky is too far away
To feel your anger
And Sometimes
It’s begging to the clouds
Your back bent and head bowed
Pleading without care
At loss of will and effort
Crying aloud
And your broken spirit
Does not break
The stormy face above
