I am not a poet.

Which makes it so odd, then, that so often there are poems that attempt to worm their way out of my head.

I have every poem I’ve ever written since I was 10. I started collecting them into a journal notebook when I was in the eighth grade. I started actually writing poetry in drafts when I was 23. I have never written anything that I would send out for publication.

It is very interesting to flip through that self-made poem book, and see how my poetry has evolved. I look back on those high school poems, so full of angst and anger and death, and can’t remember a single event that caused me to feel that way. They read a lot like the journal from my sophomore/junior year. Full of emotion, hardly any images. And so very much crap. Only the thought that I’d probably burn down the condo keeps me from burning this book.

My poetry now revolves around images. Scenes in my head that mean more than just the event. The hardest part is to get out the emotion behind the image. It’s like for some reason, my brain cannot process both into the same poem. It’s always either/or, never both.

I am very lucky that I have a wide group of friends who all write, or all understand the process of writing (but deny that they write), and are willing to listen while I hash out ideas and images and emotions. I’m never at a loss for finding someone available when I need to talk through my writing.1

Right now, there is a poem that needs to fall out onto the page. I’ve been thinking about it on and off for the last week. I have an image that’s been building. I know what the emotion is. I have absolutely no words to string together. ME and Am think it’s an absolutely brilliant idea. E tells me to write about it like I write stories — describing everything I see, and maybe the poem will come. I day dream about the poem while I’m in class, the image running through my head like a music video to a song with no lyrics.

I need to get these lyrics out. It’s a love song, both happy and sad. Hopeless and hopeful. Haunting and haunted. It’s pretty much going to be the best thing I’ve ever imagined.

But first I must get the damn image on the page without losing the emotion.

  1. Thank you! omfg thank you! I’d go crazy without you all![back]