Taking a shot at poetry

I have never been much of a writer. English in school was never my strong suit. But over the years I have gotten better and better at expressing my opinions, feelings and ideas. Which has brought me to a bit of a crossroad. How much is too much to share? Should I really voice all of my opinions? What if someone is offended or disagrees? What if someone judges me for thinking a certain way? I think everyone faces these types of fears in some area of their life.

It is these fears that almost stopped me from writing this post. Last week I dabbled a bit in poetry. I have been reading more and more amazing poets lately but haven't written it since grade 9 English class. In an attempt to get out some emotions that I felt I had been holding in, I wrote a poem. Since then I have been struggling about whether or not I should post it. What if the person it is about reads it? What if someone is offended by the content or by the language? I had pretty much decided I wasn't going to post it until I read this amazing article over at Elephant Journal. Katarina is brilliant, that is all there is to it.

So this is for you Katarina. Thank you for giving me the courage and being my inspiration to share my art and my voice with the world.

Bleeding Heart

We fucked.
and fucked
and fucked
and fucked.

We reacted to each others bodies so naturally,
like two nuclei fusing together so forcibly
and exploding just as strongly.
You touched me everywhere I wanted to be touched and in precisely the right way
leaving me in a state of ultimate bliss underneath your sweaty bed sheets.
Your scent tattooed into my hair
into the crevice of my elbow and behind my knees.
So that later, when I was alone, I would be reminded of the tingle in my toes
of the way you kissed my face and my breasts,
of the rhythm of our bodies moving together like one.

But somewhere amongst all the fucking I fell in love with you
so deeply in love with you it made my skin hurt.
It made those tattoos burn with desire and passion
it made me want to be with you every moment of the day
and to run to the depths of the Amazon jungle to hide from you.
You pried open my chest and grabbed my heart with both hands
and you brought me back to life
You took a jackhammer to the walls that I had so delicately plastered
pushed them aside like they were nothing but Lego and play-doh.
You consumed me so deeply that I was gasping for breath
even though I wanted so badly to drown deeply in your eyes,
in your sweat,
in the pleasure of it all.

This kind of love is terrifying in the most real and inexplicable way
It grabs you unexpectedly and shreds all of your senses into tiny pieces
Before you know it you find your heart outside of your body
ripped from your chest and lying in the dirty hands of your lover
still beating..
As you lie there bleeding you can't help but wonder how is it still beating?
And what of those hands?
Will those hands belong to your knight in shining armor?
The one person that will hold you during your darkest nightmares and say "everything will be OK"
Will they be the one person that will look so deeply into your soul it makes your stomach hurt
and your intestines all squeamish.
Or do they belong to someone that will never really see you
Someone that will lose interest and toss your bleeding heart to the side
like an empty cup of coffee
high from the caffeine but in need of another fix.
Leaving you broken and bloody on the sidewalk.

This fear was very present at the creation.
Even you could see it there swimming beneath the surface
haunting me in the darkest of night and in the brightest of day.
Causing many nightmares and tension.
It would never fully leave me alone
but it would start to soften
the edges wouldn't cut through my skin anymore
the scabs eventually starting to heal
and as you rubbed the scars left behind by my internal war
I believed that this time it could be different.
But this realization was bittersweet,
the moment I decided to let you keep my heart and not fear it being broken,
was the moment you no longer wanted it.
The moment you decided that all of it was too much,
that you didn't have the desire to fight with me... or for me.
It required too much effort to be interested in my dreams,
you no longer wanted to come along with me for the ride on this roller coaster called life.

So you left me there, on the sidewalk,
broken and bleeding with my heart beside me
barely beating.