It shouldn’t come to anyone as a huge surprise that some of the posts I make on this blog go off and get lives of their own. Some become short stories, others become ideas for larger projects. There are two posts that come to mind that might become poems. The one I made last night and one I made a while back. Truth is, they were always meant to become poems. Because a poem is trying to say everything you want to say with a limited amount of space, words and breath, some of these blog posts are lengthy. The trick is to remove repetition and make it sound pretty. This is a task I never find easy. For example, what follows is an “edited” version of last night’s post which I have struck out redundancy – not by much – and elements that I never intended to include.
Thought a lot about how I got to this point in my life. Having trouble admitting that it’s probably time to put these dreams on hold, get a real job and figure some shit out. Part of me wants to run away from those thoughts.
A writer has to put everything else on hold to mold yourself, perfect your voice and your craft. But I’ve been wondering why. There comes a time in everyone’s life when you just gotta choose which path you want to take, choose the life of responsibility or continue on the path of an artist. It’s only a matter of time before I wake up to find all that I worked hard for no longer sleeping soundly next to me.
Maybe I’m not a writer. Maybe I just fooled myself because of the glory of reading my work in front of a crowd of expectant people. But how much longer can I just say “fuck it” and continue on dreaming? I have the support the praise but do I really have the gift that turns a word into a phrase to the change these people need in their lives?
There’s so much I can do. Anything I put my mind to. I’m blessed with an ability to grasp almost anything. And it’s only a matter of time before everyone sees how much potential I’ve hidden away.
I can’t imagine sitting in front of a computer screen every day, crunching numbers, or presenting reports. And I can easily be trained to put on a tie every morning and pretend that I enjoy what I do, but I don’t want a life where things come to me easily. My entire existence has been easy. And nothing makes me feel more alive than to work with both of my hands.
I’m a problem solver, but lack the ability to solve my own. I can instruct others how to live their lives while at a loss of how to lead mine. And I’m tired of being the one to pass forgiveness. Tired of the one having to pick up the slack. Tired of stroking egos and I’m tired like I’m living for nothing while I have everything I ever wanted, building an empire out of what was given to me.
I ask for one second to remind I’m not wasting my time. That I have a gift instead of just making it up. I just need hear something other than, “Oh, Willie that’s the best I’ve read so far.”
I no longer want to play the smile, having to seem happy when I’m clearly not. I’ve exhausted myself pretending to feel more than I do, hiding tears behind this Cheshire smile. I want the option to feel weak, to feel vulnerable without having someone taking advantage. Tired of crying out with teenage angst that should have expired nine years ago. But here I go, rolling the dice. Playing the victim when I’m everyone’s hero.
I’ve added some elements into the post, removed others. And I’ll continue to remove, rearrange things and what not until the poem is completed and I have said all that I feel. Originally, I wanted this post to morph into a spoken word poem, but I’ve never been good at that and I don’t think there’s any time to learn. I’m also working on a set poems – which I am to write one-a-day for the 21-day poetry challenge.
And before anyone goes off to correct me – I know that the challenge is supposed to use poems that have already been written. The original challenge was to find a poem a day – depending on the topic – post it on your blog along with a short paragraph explaining why you chose it. This doesn’t work for me because it’s too simple to just Google a poem topic. No, I decided to rework the challenge into writing original poems. Of course there are some dilemmas I didn’t foresee, but I’ll work around them.
Chapin City Blues 