Many of you who have read this blog for a long time (so, basically no one) will know that I am slightly (or a lot) insecure. I always act like that person who has shit figured out, and all of my posts are humorous because I can’t see the darkness in life, but that is so far from the truth that it could be on another planet.
This isn’t one of those emotional breakdown posts where I tell you ‘Oh my god, life is so horrible, I’m masking my pain with humor’. No, no no. That’s not true at all. I’m just expressing to you this feeling that I have been having. A feeling like I’m slowly beginning to find who I really am and what I really am meant to do.
So here goes, I’m going to explain to you what that is.
I am a god.
No, not really, but come on, I’m only learning and I don’t know if I’ve quite found what I’m looking for in this particular crux of my life. I think something that people don’t really see is that you’ve never fully found yourself. You’re always on that path to new discovery, and if you stop where you’re comfortable, you won’t be you anymore. What does that say about someone that they’re more comfortable being someone else than themselves?
The idea that I will always be changing excites and alarms me. The fact that who I am now could be a little bit or a lot different than the person I’ll be in a year (or even tomorrow) is quite profound, really, and I, like everyone else I know, have a hard time wrapping my head around it. But I want to. I want to define things and then redefine them over and over again!
And I know, this post isn’t funny, but we’re getting to the part where I share something sacred with you. This little, sacred, part of me that I want to express to you, because you are my followers, and you deserve every side of Telea, not just the comedian.
And by that I mean Shut up and read this, otherwise the side of Telea you like will not come back…for at least 12 hours.
I wrote this poem about what poetry means to me for my Creative Writing Class. I want to know what it means to you, too, so if you would be kind enough to tell me what you think of both the poem and poetry itself, I would be very honored.
Poetry is the sound you hear when you’re drifting to sleep at night
A bright light at the end of a dark tunnel
The way your fingers graze across the skin of a lover
Poetry is that book you were going to write but never got around to
It’s the idea that something can be started but never finished
And vice versa
Poetry is the light dancing in the eyes of an artist when the room is black
It’s the blackness in the room
And the baited breaths held by everyone there until the lights come back on
Poetry is the sun setting only to rise again
It’s the ending to every love song you’ve ever heard
And the beginning to every love story you ever dreamed about
Poetry is the rain falling and you getting caught in it
You’re in the middle of the ocean and a storm is coming
You’re helpless, but you’re brave
Poetry is floating down a river
And wondering why it chose to move that way
And the soft reflections of your skin on the water as you just go with it
Poetry is breaking a rule and using a new one, or not using any rules at all. It’s stepping out of the norm back into the norm with a new flow, a new grace, a new power. It’s every word you ever imagined saying and every word that ever got stuck right on the tip of your tongue. Poetry is not always measured in lines or verses, no, poetry can be measured in heartbeats, in the number of times your tongue flicked across your teeth, in the number of breaths you shared with any given person on any given day in any given place.
Poetry is the paragraph you didn’t read so much as feel
The break in your sentence where the ‘I love you’ was supposed to go
The gut-wrenching pain that is losing everything
Poetry is that little twitch you get in your eye when you’re angry
That feeling you get when you mess everything up
And every word your mother used to say to you when you had done something wrong
Poetry is grace and the lack of it
Harsh realities and tender fantasies
A vintage photograph against a night sky
Poetry is that city that you love so much
The breath you catch when you see the skyline
The beating of your heart as you return to the place your soul calls home
Poetry is everything and nothing
It can make my world turn and your world stop
And then remind you that our worlds are the same
Poetry is writing a poem about poetry
Late at night when only the shadows are watching
And titling it ‘The Woes of Dreaming’, even though that has nothing to do with the poem
Poetry is taking every second, every minute, every hour
Rewinding it
And then using it to define poetry.
This is also my foolproof excuse NOT to think of something humorous to put on my blog today, as I am preoccupied with Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, NaNoWriMo, Gmail, Netflix, and Stumbleupon (Yes, ALL those tabs are open and being interacted with, and I am a tab whore.)
Love ya!
