The other day I was talking to one of my besties, Kiersten. She recently got married and knocked up and is currently residing in Deliriously Happytown. We talked about how happy we are with our lives and who woulda thunk it and all that jazz. How nothing about our lives now would our 10 year younger selves recognize as being theirs. The one drawback we both agreed on was the disappearance of our creativity.
I’ve been a writer my whole life. I started writing short (dumb) stories really young and then in middle school started writing poetry. When a friend I’d known since kindergarten passed away in 8th grade my poetry became an obsession. It was surely my way of communicating all the things I could never say out loud. So I stuck with it and I wrote and I wrote and I wrote and filled up those black and white composition books, pouring out all my angst and heartbreak and later my depression. My deepest, darkest thoughts about myself are in those books.
But now, happiness and contentedness has sucked away all the darkness in my soul so I have nothing left to write about. Sure, I could write about the sunshiney-ness of this life, but to me writing poetry was always an outlet, a way to get the hurt out. I always felt better after getting those words out of my head and onto paper. And I don’t need to do it anymore.
About a week after talking to Kiersten about our loss of our muse (Depression) I thought I would pick up my old composition books and see how ridiculous my poetry reads to my older self. And you know, I was pretty good sometimes. But that’s not the point I’m getting at here. Looking through the first book I found on the last page a note I had written to myself, or rather a contract. On the inside of the back cover I had written ‘I promise if I ever fill up this book with my poetry I will try to get it published.’ I filled the book on February 22, 1999, almost exactly 12 years ago and I have never once tried to publish anything.
So maybe I’ll start ‘publishing’ them here, my new writing journey. Some will be the silly thoughts of a teenage girl and others will be the words of a soul who had yet been found. Not everything was about me and how I was feeling. Sometimes I would write for friends or sometimes something else would inspire me.
When I was in high school my friend’s mom knew I was into poetry and gave me a book called The Best Loved Poems of the American People. I still have it and I still love it. Thank you Mrs. Katai.
This poem from that book is by an unknown author and I read it countless times and wished I knew who was behind this story. I start off my poetry publishing party with the one that inspired me to do better.
If You But Knew
If you but knew
How all my days seemed filled with dreams of you
How sometimes in the silent night
Your eyes thrill me with their tender light,
How often I hear your voice when others speak,
How you 'mid other forms I seek -
Oh, love more real than though such dreams were true
If you but knew!
Could you but guess
How you alone make my happiness
How I am more than willing for your sake
To stand alone, give all and nothing take,
Nor chafe to think you bound while I am free
Quite free, 'til death, to love you silently
Could you but guess?
Could you but learn
How when you doubt my truth I sadly yearn
To tell you all, to stand for one brief space
Unfetted, soul to soul, as face to face,
To crown you King, my King, 'til life shall end,
My lover and likewise, my truest friend,
Would you love me, dearest, as fondly in return,
Could you but learn?
I, too, write so much easier (and better, in my opinion) when I'm full of drama and angst and misery. Why is that? Why do we have to be sad in order to be brilliant? I sit here day after day and think "What else is there to write about other than the same boring crap I wrote about yesterday?" My life is happy, and you'd think that would give me a well of inspiration, but the exact opposite is true and I think it's a conspiracy, like that you can't have your cake and eat it too BS.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to read your poems. OMG, you might have just inspired me to steal your idea and knock the dust off some of the crap I wrote back when I was 15 and brilliant. ;)
The word verification is "noties". It reminded me of "besties". Can we be "noties"? You know, because we leave each other these little notes? Could I be any lamer?
omg I love noties. We are definitely noties and I'm pretty sure I'm going to start using that word all the time now. Word verification is now becoming so entertaining!
ReplyDeleteYou should definitely dust those babies off. Since we're happy and can't write our best we might as well laugh at our sad selves and be glad we're not back there again!
And since you brought it up ... I must eat cake now. Bye Notie!