Many of you might know that I write poetry... a lot of it... and, if you've ever stopped by my apartment, might have noticed my poetry journal either laying out in my room or on the coffee table in the living room, from where I've left it after an afternoon or evening of musing on the balcony with it. Poetry is so very different from prose for me, but I don't prefer one over the other. Both serve different purposes for me, and I write whichever one best helps me express whatever I'm feeling.
For a very long time, I didn't share my poetry with anybody except one or two close friends. Then I started feeling the words getting restless inside my journal. They were out of my head, but not quite out of me. It wasn't enough to keep it to myself. I slowly worked enough confidence up in myself to post a few of my poems on my Tumblr, where I learned how to release them into the great big anonymity of the Internet. I breathed my poems out into a vast space where the words waited to be found, and people found them. I don't typically get a lot of responses online, but I do get a few "likes" and the occasional reblog. There are some poets on Tumblr that get hundreds, but I can't even describe the soaring of my heart and the smile on my face for each small response that I get. Because not only does my writing get validated, it means that someone else was able to relate to the joy or heartache that I attempted to get across in my words. Knowing that means the world to me.
I follow a poet on Tumblr who writes some of the most gorgeous, hit-you-in-the-heart, simple poetry. One day, he did a promotions post, and I was incredibly astonished to see my own url amongst the other poets that he recommended. Truly, I was shocked and honored beyond words. For my idol to have read and appreciated my own poetry-- I was humbled and ecstatic at the same time.
I'm not quite sure how to put it, but the fact that my words could ever move someone in the way that I am moved by others' words (still following what I'm trying to say?) sort of means to me that my writing is purposeful. It has only ever been just for me, to relieve my own heartache or spell out my stress or capture my joy, and I make it a point not to write something on purpose that I think others want to read, to play into what others want. I would never change my style or voice for something so shallow, to get more likes and reblogs. To know that my own, plain writing style is being accepted and loved by others, without me having to change... I feel like that's the goal I have been unknowingly working towards since the days of being bullied for being different and refusing to change. I have always refused to change. I have always been happy with being me. It has been difficult, but with this validation, I both feel and see that it has been worth it.
Some of my poems are far too private to leave the confines of my journal. Some are private, but safe enough to post to Tumblr, where I still feel a sense of anonymity. I don't know how ready I am to share my personal poetry with those who can put a face to the words. But I'm so happy that I found the courage to share my poetry on another site, and I hope that with time, I will learn more about my own writing and how to move forward with it. If you're reading this as I publish it, I hope that you're having a lovely 1 AM, as I am, procrastinating and putting off work that's already been put off for far too long in order to shamelessly, dare I use the word, brag about my meager words that have somehow reached people, when I never thought they would leave the closed pages of my journal.
I am so sorry for how long that sentence was. Kudos to those who pushed through it.
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