For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been pretty much exclusively writing poetry. And at first, I convinced myself I was doing it just to have something to post on this blog or to keep me writing, like it was a chore. Hell, over half of the ones I’ve posted were literally copied and pasted from when I was at university. At the time, I just could not bring myself to talk about anything really, so it seemed a quick and easy fix to just post something I’d already written. But I think I may have been working on a more subconscious level, now that I look back on that decision.
There are a lot of things that have happened recently that I’m still not completely comfortable telling just anyone. But ya know, I don’t want to talk about it anymore, but of course I want to talk about it. I want to tell anyone and everyone who will listen, but I don’t want to be judged or seen in a negative way. Sometimes I’ll stumble upon someone who cares enough to ask who I know I can trust, but, with poetry, I can sate both of those desires fairly easily.
Talking about something without actually talking about it is, I think, why I like poetry. I’ve found that I don’t want to explain myself most of the time. If you were to find my true meaning in my writing, well congrats, but if you don’t, well that’s fine too. And the beauty of poetry is that that is perfectly acceptable.
I often find myself looking back on my choices and such trying to find meaning in them, constantly asking myself why I do things. One thing I’ve learned about myself is that I have a craving to be in control of every part of my life. So to admit that I feel guided by my subconscious more often than I actively and consciously make decisions is pretty frustrating. For what it’s worth, I’m slowly becoming more okay with that, which is probably why I’ve been more up to the idea of writing poetry. The lines just come to me and I shape them into something resembling a poem.
I remember that used to drive me crazy, feeling as if it wasn’t really me writing the poem, feeling as if the ideas weren’t my own. The idea of a stolen thought, something I come back to over and over, really hits home for me because I look back on my actions and find meaning in things I hadn’t considered at the time. It made me feel as if there was another version of myself that seemed to always be calling the shots. I guess where I’m going with this is that I’m sort of okay with that now and I’m thankful for it because it’s what enables me to write. And it was just me all along.
mack rogers writes 