I don’t think they understand how
difficult it is for the Poet to forget.
There is no returning from the places we go.
There is no way to escape the darkness.
There is no way to take back the names we shouted from rooftops.
No way to escape the sinful truths we yelled across mountains.
There is no chance of repayment for the parts of us we have given away. We must learn to live with our missing pieces.
People own books with us in now.
They have seen our chosen words and they know how we describe things and it is like a window to the soul.
Because poetry is so goddamn personal that we share every part of ourselves and we give our secrets away.
You can buy my secrets in a book, and you can read them if you like,
you may use them to escape reality. But remember your release is my life.
When i let go for the first time,
when i wrote with my whole heart,
I thought i would feel free.
But now i read it back and realise that the commitment to paper leaves me feeling as though i am sitting in a bath for hours stuck in my own dirt.
Because, dear readers, when a poet commits themselves and empties their soul,
they have given all that they are.
And it is now that i realise, it’s not long forgotten faces that haunt me, but my own poetry.