My journey with poetry

I tell people that my journey with poetry started with a class I took as a Sophomore in college. But truthfully, I wrote poetry in high school, and then stopped because I just wasn't there yet.

And maybe that's just because I feel like poetry-for me, at least-is therapy. It soothes my anxiety and helps me feel the negative emotions that I prefer to turn into positive vibes, but also avoid feeling sometimes.

The first poem I ever write was one on mental illness, and it was waay before I experienced anxiety at the level of what I'm at now. When I was in the beginning stages of my writing journey, I hid my writing from everyone, and then when I showed them all of it, I hoped people wouldn't judge me even if I had edited nothing and my work was at its sloppiest.

With poetry, I left such a long gap between my first poem in high school and my rewriting of it; I think I had improved enough to want to edit the poem to perfection before I shared with anyone.

But I still start poems with some kind of deeply hidden emotion that has burst out of my body as I write.

Once, I started writing a poem when I was happy, and then I hesitated to write, because I had this one face story that told me this: I would probably write better poetry when the writer feels intense negative emotions. Throughout high school- in my English classes, and even college classes, I don't remember reading over two poems that was happy.

Rarely were there poems about the beauty of life.

Or maybe I just decided not to see poetry that way.

I don't really know.

But what I've realized is that after I had my anxiety take over and I decided enough was enough, I also changed my writing. I no longer denied myself the right to write the happy poetry, and I didn't deny any of the other emotions either.

Sadness and anger and every other secondary emotion that comes and goes with moments in life are things that I am not capable of adding to my personality. They come and go, but not like seasons.

They come like the flash of a camera, here and then gone, and so I have no real reason to fear them, except for maybe when my distrust in myself is so heightened I push those feelings away and don't give myself the chance to just breathe them in, and exhale peace and confidence and happiness.

It doesn't help that I've seen people who let those emotions rule them, even if they were also trying to be productive and capable and all the things you probably need to be to continue with life.

But other people, and how they have dealt with their emotions, is something that I cannot control. I suppose that's also something I needed to let go of. Control of what other people think of me, control of what they say, how they act, those stupid judgements they might never change about me. Not everyone is going to be self-aware, not everyone is going to understand me the way I understand them-or try to.

My writing-poetry and fiction-is something I selfishly own. It's mine, because I'm the writer.

Because I tell the stories I write, and my voice is in my poems.

So if you're reading this, and you have something that you need to say in writing, say it.

Don't be afraid.

Don't hold back.

-May