According to Amado, I’m sharing more intimate details—more corazón—at the readings. Thursday, I read Eulogy of the Living (a sewn together piece I shared a few months ago) and a post from the blog. “My writing’s always been personal,” I defended myself, not knowing why. “Yeah, but…” And I knew what he meant. Give a man a mask, and he will tell the truth. I’m just a man whose outgrown masks. I dropped the Ennui Prayer moniker (though it’s forever present in the background of social network urls).

Writing is therapy. The cliché is never been more prevalent. As a child, I started writing to keep my thoughts. To put things in order. To hold control over things I wouldn’t have otherwise. I worked on my craft all these years out, not out of some sense that I’d become a profound writer one day but to keep myself from going over the deep. I wrote mostly autobiographical pieces, using dead bodies and drugs and alcohol as metaphors to the demons I carried with me.

Last year, I saw my relationship with Jeanna crumbled. And the dead bodies, drugs, and alcohol came back. Writing about divorce and separation without putting the topics in the foreground is a difficult task. So I dropped them and started writing from my heart. I returned to my poetry roots. I returned to just standing at the mic and speaking. I’m blending my journal writing and personal blogging skills into my new pieces (minus the links) and pouring out a side of me I’ve kept hidden.

So if my writing carries more corazón, as Amado states, it’s because I’m not holding back anymore. I’m building my way toward my feature night when I can stand in front of the mic and profess a year of separation and moving on. And last night’s conversation gave me hope. But hey, just because I’m sharing more doesn’t mean I’m sharing every detail. Not yet, anyway.