Emily Jo
for my grandmother
Bookshelves bending under the weight of books,
fingers stained with ribbon ink,
in the end all these things bled away.
They blurred away like sharpie on fabric.
the woman that left them all behind
instilled a gnawing hunger for words in me.
My bookshelves are bending under
the weight of a thousand voices,
my hands are covered in ink.
For some reason I think I can save
the world with my gnarled heart.
She showed me how to take a book, make it
reality, grow from a seed, and spread
my petals up to the sun. I'm reaching,
grasping for anything to keep me above
torrential rains, I am drowning.
The woman who taught me how to climb
the shelves to find the best book, fell down.
She left me to grow all by myself.
Her petals fell all at once, without warning.
Their diamond and ruby glow buried
beneath the stagnant soil our roots bear into,
so I bury myself under the weight of books.
I use writing as a way to express what I often can't say. My writing process is often thoughtless, I don't think about the words I'm typing/writing I focus just on getting them on the page. Editing comes after the thoughts are out and can be reread. Often times I think that people get caught up with editing while they're still in the writing process which is dangerous because you're messing with the creative process. I personally don't edit at all in my first draft. Sometimes my final draft only has a few changes and sometimes you can't even tell the first and final draft are related but I've found that through the years this is the editing process that works for me.
The poem above is a poem that I wrote for my grandmother who passed away in July of 2016. This was a tough poem to write but it was also a poem that helped me heal. I am proud to say that I am her granddaughter and I tried my best to capture who she was. This poem happens to be one that didn't change too much from the first draft with the exception of adding stanzas and changing a couple of word choices, but this often isn't the case. Poetry is one of the most important forms of art to me and I use it as a healing process.
