I spend too long considering what to write tonight. I get wrapped up in old writing I’ve organized–brutal poems from some of the worst years of my life. The words used to bleed out of me, an effortless account of how cut up I was inside. When I read those words a part of me needs to armor up since I’m taken forcibly back into my body then (I can remember the bed, the wine, the taste of tequila, no lime, no salt). Another part of me thinks a few of them are quite good. Or at least they hit my heart in a way I can appreciate with the distance.
Not that I miss the unrequited love poems. Not the feeling behind them anyhow. I think, when I was younger, I somehow thought the poetry I wrote was the beginning of a story. I believed stories would end how I imagined. And then, one by one, domino by domino, I was proved wrong. So I do not miss the love poems. I don’t write them anymore.
Or–not the same kind. Because I write about the stars and my family and my friends and this entire blog, this project that’s three years old now, is an attempt to write about the light. Life is about creating yourself, and I wanted to create a life that was more beautiful than the sad poetry that I would never share.
I knew that even then. And I guess I will share a snippet of some old poetry because I wrote a poem dramatically titled “Burn Your Dreams” in April 2016, barely five weeks after I left my marriage. In some ways, it was a blueprint for my healing. Here’s an exert from one early stanza:
But Cinderella grows up
And in the palace
With new appliances
And two bathrooms
And Cinderella, she knows
Dreams do come true
Even if now, you don’t want them to
The poem goes on to say “Burn your dreams Cinderella” as a metaphor for starting over and the closing section includes these lines:
But just wait, just watch
As she builds up a castle
And climbs to the top
And looks out at the dragons
And looks out at the dreams
And Cinderella you would never believe
What it feels like to build
Instead of burn
Maybe that’s what I’m trying to say tonight. That, on the surface, the building, the living, isn’t as poetic as the burning and the surviving felt. But, Cinderella, you would never believe what it feels like to build instead of burn.
It feels like love. A more true and beautiful version of love than I could ever represent in a poem about romance or heartbreak. I needed all those love poems, but may I never be so brutal to my heart again.
With Love,
Natalie