My Dearest Reader,
I hope you are well on this sticky August evening. I am writing for the first time in over five, yes five, years. It's baffling to think that much time has passed since I let the world into my deepest thoughts and secrets. Yet, here I sit writing to you, whilst the hum of soft snores from across the bed calms my fidgety fingers.
It's been a long five years. A lot has changed. I have survived and overcome so much. I hope to share my story with you over the next few blogs. I pray that you will bear with me as I dust off the right side of my brain that has been dormant for too long. It may take me a while to fill the cracks in my voice.
I slowly lost myself in the throws of domestic abuse. Twice. And even after I escaped, the depths of my trauma kept me paralyzed in fear. I was too afraid to look over the ledge and into the abyss that is my past.
It felt safer to pull the covers over my head and drown out the sounds of moaning calling from the shelf with anything but writing. Work. Errands. Chores. More work. And some more work... Writing became too painful. It made me take a hard look in the rearview mirror. And I wasn't ready to face my past, my trauma, or myself.
But, I think I am finally ready to offer these wounds a breath of fresh air. The damp, staleness that has been growing beneath the surface has become too much to bear any longer.
So with that, I will depart for now. My wish is that you'll join me once again in my journey of using poetry, prose, and everything in between to share my experiences and innermost feelings with you.
I am hopeful that I will be strong enough to withstand the crashing waves overhead this time, and swim to the surface rather than sinking into the darkness of the sea floor.
Friday, August 10, 2018
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Constantly Risking Absurdity
It's been nearly a year and a half
since I've allowed myself to pick up an pen and write from my heart.
Truthfully, I've come to realize that though I
busied myself with an abundance of school work, reading materials,
research projects, money making endeavors, and housework, I spent most
of my time mourning a loss.
When I entered my freshman year at Waynesburg University, technically speaking, I was a psychology major. Nevertheless, when I stepped foot inside a building by the name of Buhl Hall, I discovered something magical, a world unlike I had ever encountered. I discovered the classroom of Jill Moyer Sunday. She helped mold, shape, prune, and shake up an ability I for years took for granted: the ability to create via the written word. And ever since I traded the comfort and safety I felt while beneath her wings for a life away from Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, I've felt lost.
The summer before my sophomore year, I felt my words slowly withering away. By the time fall had arrived, the fire that had so vibrantly lit my fingers on fire, scorching beauty across page or computer screen, died out. I felt that without the walls of the classrooms that shaped me, without the mentor who so gracefully built me up, I was nothing. Somewhere, deep down, I thought I had abandoned the best thing that had ever happened to me, and that because of it I no longer deserved to feel the sense of contentment that writing had gifted to me.
Then, I met Dr. Barbour. On April 29th, Kathy Barbour walked into the Fiction and Poetry Workshop at Hanover College, mop and broom in hand, a boombox on her hip. Her pale blue eyes danced inside her sockets, as she told us that before we could begin May term, we had to be initiated. She also told us that in order to be successful during the course of the class, we had to "constantly risk absurdity."
And so she tossed us kitchen utensils, mops, brooms and the like, and told us that we had to make music with them. She danced around the room to a groovy, island tune, twirling a mop as though it were a loyal dance partner. This went on for another twenty minutes or so. Yes, we felt completely stupid. But little did we know, Kathy Barbour was a genius.
She was doing was lowering our inhibitions, easing our tension, and erasing our expectations. By God, she broke the ice with a jackhammer of crazy, but it sure did the trick. By the second day of class, we were pouring out raw, uninhibited soul through our words to one another. We were eagerly drinking up the style, rhyme, and rhythm, allowing the brilliance of one another to reverberate through our bodies, and spark our own sense of what it meant to create.
I'd like to thank Dr. Barbour. She opened my heart to writing, again. I now know that I never had to stifle the fire in my heart that yearned each and every day for a pen and paper. She reminded me of something I had long forgotten during the course of my nearly two year hiatus; my talent never came from a place, it comes from within me.
So without further ado, here's a poem I wrote this morning, while sleep still clung to my lashes. Enjoy!
A Front Porch Kind of Night”
When I entered my freshman year at Waynesburg University, technically speaking, I was a psychology major. Nevertheless, when I stepped foot inside a building by the name of Buhl Hall, I discovered something magical, a world unlike I had ever encountered. I discovered the classroom of Jill Moyer Sunday. She helped mold, shape, prune, and shake up an ability I for years took for granted: the ability to create via the written word. And ever since I traded the comfort and safety I felt while beneath her wings for a life away from Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, I've felt lost.
The summer before my sophomore year, I felt my words slowly withering away. By the time fall had arrived, the fire that had so vibrantly lit my fingers on fire, scorching beauty across page or computer screen, died out. I felt that without the walls of the classrooms that shaped me, without the mentor who so gracefully built me up, I was nothing. Somewhere, deep down, I thought I had abandoned the best thing that had ever happened to me, and that because of it I no longer deserved to feel the sense of contentment that writing had gifted to me.
Then, I met Dr. Barbour. On April 29th, Kathy Barbour walked into the Fiction and Poetry Workshop at Hanover College, mop and broom in hand, a boombox on her hip. Her pale blue eyes danced inside her sockets, as she told us that before we could begin May term, we had to be initiated. She also told us that in order to be successful during the course of the class, we had to "constantly risk absurdity."
And so she tossed us kitchen utensils, mops, brooms and the like, and told us that we had to make music with them. She danced around the room to a groovy, island tune, twirling a mop as though it were a loyal dance partner. This went on for another twenty minutes or so. Yes, we felt completely stupid. But little did we know, Kathy Barbour was a genius.
She was doing was lowering our inhibitions, easing our tension, and erasing our expectations. By God, she broke the ice with a jackhammer of crazy, but it sure did the trick. By the second day of class, we were pouring out raw, uninhibited soul through our words to one another. We were eagerly drinking up the style, rhyme, and rhythm, allowing the brilliance of one another to reverberate through our bodies, and spark our own sense of what it meant to create.
I'd like to thank Dr. Barbour. She opened my heart to writing, again. I now know that I never had to stifle the fire in my heart that yearned each and every day for a pen and paper. She reminded me of something I had long forgotten during the course of my nearly two year hiatus; my talent never came from a place, it comes from within me.
So without further ado, here's a poem I wrote this morning, while sleep still clung to my lashes. Enjoy!
A Front Porch Kind of Night”
Purple petals flow against
her lobes,
glowing strands of auburn
hair catch her pearls.
She digs her bitten
nails into the floral scarf
wrapped around her
neck, a steady arch.
The stem folds into
her glasses,
a brilliant shade of
blue.
She gazes out between
the bundles of brush, huddled together,
a
pair of cardinals ruffle feathers,
uplifting
melting flakes of snow. Shuffle
their feet across the slush, beaks nibbling, lustful lips
longing to wander
into full, icy hips.
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