When I was about 7, my mother and my father split up because of my mom's adultery. That is when I wrote my first poem. It was full of sadness and hurt; full of feelings of being lost with no way out. I hate that poem to this day. It made bricks and layed them down so that I could walk down a path that put black film over my eyes. All I saw a gray world with gray people. I saw no one good, and most people bad. I saw lives being lost and lives being born. I saw flowers blooming just to die. I saw it all in gray as I screamed on the inside for something better. I screamed for a life where people are inherently good and flowers bloom to stay alive.
Of course, this changed once I fell in love. The black film was lifted only slight, but sometimes I can see it fall. When it stays up the world seems vibrant, with rays of light shimmering on everything, especially him. He sparkles in my eyes and everything he does is golden. I feel the need to write about him, and just about him, but all that can come out is "I love you" because no words are good enough. I sit and I try and I get so sad when no words move my finger tips across my key board. That is when the black film falls and I write things about my uncle, the one who touched me when I was younger. I write about cheating because I have been cheated on one too many times. I write poems about rape and death and subjects that are so depressing, but I just can't stop myself.
As a poet I see myself falling into a tunnel every time I write. I feel like Alice in Wonderland, but the things I see as I'm falling are memories that have been sewn into my heart as an effort to abuse my mind. Those memories bring stanzas after stanzas for my finger tips to rapidly write. And when I am done, I read what I have stamped onto my computer and I think that I am lost in life.
I realized that I am not lost once I wrote a great poem for my love. I wrote the vows I want to say at our wedding as I am holding his hand and as my lips are quivering due to the happy tears. That poem is the only thing that I have written about him, or for him, that I think is good enough. No matter how much I try to write more poems to show my affection for him, no words come out.
The other day in my creative writing class I wrote a Terza Rima (a poem with an aba bcb cdc rhyme scheme). I wanted to write it about him, but it sounded so awful. I ended up writing "Page turning madness/ Paper cuts resting/ Floating absentmindedness// Going along, soaring/ Flying on the sky/ Riding on each car, thinking// Being restless, but equally/ Scared/ Open, but not crazy// Waiting for something sacred/ Wishing for something more/ Hoping to be believed.// You want to soar,/ Never fall down, and lead,/ But for now you are a bore." Obviously, this is not a poem of love or contentness, this is a poem written due to the black film covering my eyes after an attempt to put my happiness on paper.
Although I attribute my gray world to the fact that I am a poet, I would not give up poetry for anything in the universe. Poetry is a major part of my life, it is part of what keeps my heart beating every day. It may attribute to that black film, but it also attributes to my happiness. It allows me to feel everything to the fullest extent, especially my untroubled moments. Those moments when I am with my boyfriend and life is amazing I feel like I am climing a mountain while looking at flowers that live eternally.
