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.

How to be alone

I have never handled being alone well. I'm a people person so I like having company around. Sometimes when I am left alone I end up running away with my thoughts and have to force myself to come back to reality. I have always viewed alone as a negative thing until I stumbled onto this poem a few weeks ago. I hope it helps to change how you feel about alone as well.

How to be alone - Tanya Davis

If you are, at first, lonely - be patient.
If you're not been alone much of if, when you were, you weren't
okay with it then just wait,
you'll find it's fine to be alone...
once you're embracing it.

We could start with the acceptable places: the bathroom, the
coffee shop, the library.
Where you can stall and read the paper,
Where you can get your caffeine fix and sit and stay there,

where you can browse the stacks and smell the books

you're not supposed to talk much anyway,

so it's safe there.

There's also the gym.
If you're shy you can hang out with yourself in the mirrors, you
can put headphones in.
And there's public transportation
- because we all gotta go places -
and there's prayer and meditation
no one will think less if you're hanging out with your breath
seeking peace and salvation.

Start simple, things you may have previously avoided based on your avoid-
being-alone principles.
The lunch counter, where you will be surrounded by chow-
downers,
employees that only have an hour
and their spouses work across town
and so they, like you, will be alone.
Resist the urge to hang out with your cell phone.

When you are comfortable with eat-lunch-and-run, take
yourself out for dinner,
a restaurant with linen and silverware.
You're no less intriguing a person when you're eating solo dessert
and cleaning the whipped cream from the dish with your finger;
in fact, some people at full tables will wish they were where
you were.

Go to the movies
where it is dark and soothing
alone in your seat amidst a fleeting community.

And, then, take yourself out dancing,
to a club where no one knows you
stand on the outside of the floor
until the lights convince you more and more
and the music shows you.
Dance like no one's watching
('cause they are probably not)
and, if they are, assume it is with best and human intentions,
the way bodies move genuinely to beats is, after all, gorgeous
and affecting.
Dance until you're sweating
and beads of perspiration remind you of life's best things,
down your back like a brook of blessings.

Go to the woods alone and the trees and squirrels will watch
for you.
Go to an unfamiliar city, roam the streets,
there are always statues to talk to
and benches made for sitting
give strangers a shared existence
if only for a minute
and these moments can be so uplfting
and the conversations that you get in
by sitting alone on benches
might have never happened
had you not been there by yourself.

Society is afraid of alone though,
like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements,
like people must have problems if, after awhile, no body is dating
them

But alone is a freedom that breathes easy and weightless
and lonely is healing if you make it.

You could stand, swathed by groups and mobs or hold hands
with your partner
look both further and farther
in the endless quest for company,
but no one's in your head
and by the time you translate your thoughts some essence of
them may be lost
or perhaps it is just helpt,
perhaps in the interest of loving oneself,
perhaps all of those sappy slogans
from preschool over
to high school's groaning
were tokens for holding the lonely at bay.
   'cause if you're happy in your head then solitude is blessed and
alone if okay.

It's okay if no one believes like you
all experiences unique, no one has the same synapses
can't think like you
for this be relieved,
keeps it interesting, life's magic things in reach.

And it doesn't mean you aren't connected, that community's not
present.
Just take the perspective you get
from being one person alone in one head
and feel the effects of it.

Take silence and respect it.
If you have an art that needs a practice, stop neglecting it.
If your family doesn't get you
or religious sect is not meant for you
don't obsess about it.

You could be, in an instant, surrounded, if you need it.
If you're heart is bleeding make the best of it

there is heat in freezing, be a testament