The Power of Poetry

I had been reading poetry for several years before I came to the decision to actually write some. I was going through a strange time, with lots of emotional highs and lows (I still am to this day). I'd had enough of boring, monotonous diary entries reminding me of how sad my life was. I was some kind of modern-day Bridget Jones, without all the men falling at my feet, and a lot less funnier.

What I needed was passion. I needed to expel from my tired body all the feelings whirling around inside me like a tornado. I was angry. So angry my blood boiled. I was barely under control. I still am barely under control.

My life isn't terrible. But I have worries, like any other person on this earth. I bottle my emotions, shelf them to deal with at a better time, which rarely ever comes around. I've had to deal with stress through all the stages of my life: As a child, my dad was an abusive, manipulative monster. He was the recurring theme in all of my nightmares. I inherited a lot of things from him, but the one thing I wish I could give back is my temper. Luckily I channel my mother's calm, emotionless energy on my exterior. I keep it all inside, letting it grow, feeding it often. It really is a neurotic beast that needs taming. Through my teen years there was school bullies. I made some bad decisions which caused my school-life to become unbearable. I didn't get on with boys or my mother's new boyfriend. My dad was still very much a thorn in my side, until I didn't have to see him anymore. Phasing into my adult years, I let people treat me badly. I always tried to give people whatever they wanted in my naivety. And men could get almost anything they wanted out of me.

Through the pain, heartache, work-stress and self-abuse, the only thing that relieved me was reading. When I was reading, nothing else mattered. I could pick up a book, wave a middle finger goodbye to the real world, and disappear into something better and bigger.

Poetry isn't my favourite thing to read, but there is definitely something to be said about it. Gone were the boring diary entries. I replaced them with my real feelings, which were much easier to express through poetry. It's dramatic, it's explosive, it's angry, it's beautiful, it's filled to the brim, and spilling over with delicious waves of passion. Passion isn't even a good enough word for how I feel when I read or write poetry. It's simply too bland. I feel energetic, voracious, and violently ravenous. It takes something out of me even a knife to the skin can't satisfy. It's something completely under my control. And it keeps me sane.

It’s now my mission to write as much as possible. Why? It’s cathartic. I like to think of it as yoga for the mind: tiring, emotional and probably doesn’t smell great freeing.

I haven't ever published any of my poetry. And it definitely needs fixing up and cleaning. Here is a chosen one, a poem of mine that spoke to me on an emotional level. It talks of the sun and the moon as almost-lovers:

She is like the moon,

A dark mystery,

Turning dank, dark skies,

Into beautifully enchanted night.

He is like the sun,

A hot, booming wall of happiness,

A glowing power,

A force to be reckoned with.

The two shall never meet,

But they will always wonder.

(The Sun and The Moon)