Verses

I love poetry! To read it, listen to it, is like stealing kisses from an angel. And to write it (oh to write it!), is like borrowing words from heaven’s vaults. But alas, I am no poet! I wrote thousands of poems in my journals growing up, wrote them for everyone I loved on their birthdays, and even joined a few poetry writing contests. But the likes of Pablo Neruda, Shel Silverstein, Oscar Wilde, Maya Angelou, etc. have ruined me. I was convinced I could never be any of them or even worthy enough to walk in their shadows, so I stopped trying.

I shouldn’t have. Poetry has a way of revealing your unspeakable truths, undiluted thoughts, and inexpressable emotions in a more cathartic way than prose. There was a time when I was only able to live with the turbulence churning inside because of it. It was my escape, my release. I love how you can lurk between the words, hide behind each verse, and still show yourself without anyone having a clue.

In 6th grade, I got my heart broken on Valentine’s Day by a boy who was oblivious to the pain hiding behind dark brown eyes. I wrote verses every day that summer and they all ended up in an unmarked pink box together with memories I’d rather forget; so when we moved, I left it on purpose. The old house probably wished I took it with me because it’s heaviness weighed on the foundations until it crumbled, brick by brick. 

My teenage heart, impressionable, gullible, and prone to volatility, waded through the tide of warring emotions and dissonant choices buoyed by the tender whispers of Walt Whitman, Lord Byron, and E.E. Cummings; but it only reached safe harbor cocooned in the mighty wings of words that flew out of the pen my muse lent me. A tear for every stroke, a muffled cry for every line, a relief at each punctuation. 

So, yes, I’m writing poems again, albeit for my eyes only. The kind I used to write when I felt the world more than I saw it. Maybe, just maybe, I get to publish that book of poems I dreamed of after all.

Someday.

Looking through.