New Theme

I review my poetry frequently to analyze my growth and evolution.  I evaluate my rapidly changing style, my quirks, my downfalls.  I have been writing creative pieces since I was eight years old.  Eight.  I said, “Mom, I want to be a writer when I grow up.”  Well, I am one.  I write all day at work and then I come home and usually continue writing.  When I’m not writing, I’m reading, stuffing new knowledge into my already-jumbled brain.  But that’s what you do when you want to improve.  You have to saturate your mind to capacity and practice every single day of your existence.

Well, I do that.

It’s Easter and I am home alone sitting on my futon.  The sun is glowing through the window.  I hear some birds chirping and the cars racing past the building.  I sat here for awhile and read my old pieces, and instead of criticizing the words that I read, I sort of just let them flow off of my tongue to see what they sounded like.  An important part of poetry is the sound, the rhythm. During this exercise, I realized that it’s time for another giant shift.  I have always paid close attention to my finished products and which ones fit together.  When too many start to fit together, it is time for a new shift.

My poetry has taken on a professional sound that I am not fond of.  In addition, the new structural canals that I am now stuck in are beginning to bore me beyond belief.  These both aside, the most annoying part is my writing’s underlying theme…

It is shackling me to a thought that I don’t want to think anymore.  “What am I to you?”  I have been nothing for years and I am still nothing.  Who wants to think about that every time you allot time towards your passion? I am an empty space: that’s what I am to you.  I am the air that brushes past you that you forget about instantly.  I am the broken toy that someone left in a muddy gutter somewhere, a missing eye and fluff busting out the seams.

I am sick of hearing myself say it.  You are nothing.  You are nothing.  You are absolutely fucking nothing.  It has been drilled into my head so far that I’m not even sure that I have a head anymore.  There is nothing above my shoulders and the dust on the ground is all that’s left for crying.
A theme that stuck with me for years was “you are what you surround yourself with.”  It was a beauitful theme.  And then I realized how unbeautiful I had become, so I abandoned that theme for something more fitting.

Now I am sick of the shoe that fits and I am ready to delve into a new topic.  I am damaged goods.  I know this.  I am broken more than I ever thought that I would be.  THAT is what I am to you.
But how do I change that?  How do I take this damaged woman, plant her in the desert with no plant food and no water, and expect her to grow?  How does one take a home that has burnt down and build a mansion with no money, no tools, no dreams?

Easy.  Magic.