i am not a poet

And yet, I write poetry.

I know this sounds a bit contradictory — and it is. I often say that the poems I write are just words with line breaks. I think it's because I had a poetry professor complain about modern poetry for 20-minutes straight and now I am hesitant to refer to the things I write as poems. After all, what does poetry even mean? Are the things I write poetry or just stories with line breaks and funnily placed punctuation? Does that make it poetry?

I am a writer (sorta). Me doing this right now is indicative of that (kinda). But a poet? A poet seems too high-end, too skillful. And I am not that skillful.

And yet, I write poetry. Or, words with line breaks.

I only really write poetry when I am going through a hard time. My poems tend to lean towards the sad side. They lean towards heartache and grief and loss and fear. I think I could count the number of happy poems I've written in the last year on one hand. 

Often times, a line will come into my head, a phrase. And then I build around it. It's a similar process to my writing, as well, but it happens more frequently for my poems.

Phrases like:
"My love has never known reciprocity" or
"Why wasn't I enough" or
"I am Sisyphus and you are the boulder" or
"You are worth being loved" or, most recently
"You are no longer listening."

Re-reading my words is always a trigger. I recently handwrote over 100 poems into a notebook (the hand cramps were REAL). It's part of an art project I am starting with my friends. It'll be like the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants except a poetry book instead of jeans. It took me 3 days of on-and-off work and it was an effort to avoid getting tears on the pages. 

I still tear up reading some of those works. They serve as reminders of what I felt — and what I still feel — and while I think it's important to get those feelings out, to put them on paper (or a word doc), sometimes I wish I didn't do it. Sometimes I wish I could stop writing. Mostly, I wish the phrases would stop circulating in my brain.

They say to make art out of your pain. That's where the term "tragic artist" comes from: creating art out of your tragedy. Using your pain as fuel. Yes, beautiful things can come out of pain. But no, I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I don't think anyone really wants to experience pain in order to make art. It just happens. 

I wish I wrote happy poems, just purely happy poems. Because even the ones that are "happy" have twinges of sadness because they're often based on memories that are now tainted. 

I have written more "poems" in the last two months than I have in my entire lifetime. Pain is fuel and I have yet to run out.  

how do you tell someone

they make your insides

warm and your heart

skip a beat with a simple glance?

how do you tell someone

that being around them

makes you feel safe,

safer than you’ve ever felt before?

how do you tell someone

you want to intertwine your hands

and never let go?

how do you tell someone

that they’re all you think about

day in and day out?

how do you tell someone

you love them

when they’re no longer listening?

voicemail - antarctigo vespucci