Reading previous poems written by oneself, I have come to find I am not the person I once was.
Growth happens in ways we don\'t see.
It\'s funny how we learn backwards.
My past life beat me to my knees until I was battered and bruised, sick and tired, nihilistic and volatile, violent and cruel. I spat words of hate towards myself and others—to people both deserving and not.
And of my most recent revelations, I\'ve come to find the thing that kept me afloat was one of my biggest mottos: \"Change the way you think, and the way you see things change.\"
It\'s so cliché, as they say, but it is when you change those harrowing, negative thoughts that berate and pollute the brain that you learn changing your thought process matters.
The thing is, nobody teaches us how to do so.
Learning backwards—to be able to look back at the ugly and take that ugliness, the shattered pictures, broken glass, fractured memories, and turn them into art, a canvas. A painting or sketch that people would admire and gasp in awe at, all from the broken pencils and crayons, shavings from oil pastels which one would think could never be used to color again.
To take every bad hand dealt and walk away from the poker table with tenfold the amount you sat down with.
The majority don\'t come back from the hell that they\'ve been through. The devil sat in my ear, and scratched and clawed at my pant legs as I made my way through the depths of fire and pain to the light that is now: peace and prosperity.
To teach others based on the pain and experience that I\'ve been through, to inspire and motivate others who can\'t help themselves, to sit with the grieving through their bereavement and let them know that they aren\'t alone. To help those that don\'t believe in themselves or anything for that matter...
Learning backwards is the way, and most cannot attain what it is that they\'re looking for because they\'re too busy looking in the wrong direction.
Everything is here to teach us—every corner, nook, and cranny. Every mishap, every accident, good or bad. With reflection, and without self-sabotage, without pride, without ego, but with brutal honesty, grace, compassion, and most of all, change in real time... we learn and unlearn along the way.
Dwelling is a different story, but learning backwards is something that we all do.
Take a second to ponder on that and do what you will.
Love,
L.