Pieces & Poems

Do you ever find yourself missing a piece of yourself? I do. For me, it is how creative I was in high school. I was always out taking photographs, reading new books, finding new music and, mostly, writing poetry. I loved poetry so much that I barely went a day without writing a poem or two. I kept my poems in a leather bound journal with JOURNAL scripted on the front and a golden touch on the side of the pages. Once that journal was full, I began writing on the pages of a suede journal I had found on the street in New York City (thrifty, I know). However, once I left high school I never looked back at the suede journal again. It is almost as if I hit the stop button on my poetry.

My poems were about everything from Bob Dylan to a boy I spent the weekend with at the Jersey Shore to Jackson Hole. I remember my poems hanging up in my then-boyfriends room, published in the student poetry journal and recognized by Rutgers University and poetry festivals (yes, they have those).These moments were thrilling and wonderful and are very much missed, yet each time I set myself down to write I cannot think of a single word to even start with. Which brings me to ask do you think some pieces of us just stay in the past because they were so wonderful in those certain moments? Or maybe we just put our energy towards something else to create new pieces?

On that deep note, I leave with the work of one my most loved poets, Richard Brautigan:

ALL GIRLS SHOULD HAVE A POEM

            For Valerie

All girls should have a poem
written for them even if
we have to turn this God-damn world
upside down to do it.

            New Mexico
            March 16, 1969