As I believe I have mentioned in the past, much of my writing time has been focused on finishing prep on my newest novel (RUNNER) as I will be querying it within the next few days.

Nonetheless, I’ve found an itch to do something that I haven’t done in quite some time (i.e. years): write poetry.

For a very, very long time, poetry was the only kind of creative writing to which I subscribed. I have spent years studying it and even used my college senior honors project in English to write an Ars Poetica. By the time I largely stopped writing poetry (a few months before I took up novel writing), I’d already created several books’ worth of poems divided by topics and inspiration, etc. I don’t say that to brag; my point is that poetry came more naturally to me than any other kind of writing, so it’s rather remarkable that I stopped for as long as I did. And probably equally remarkable that I’ve come back to it.

Frankly, my thoughts on poetry have changed, and while I largely wrote in my earlier youth with the goal of putting together and publishing books of poetry, I’ve now taken to writing down poems as an expression of my thoughts. The last two years have involved some incredibly difficult and stupendously wonderful changes in my life, which means that sometimes my head gets so full of words that I need to export some of them to paper such that I can better understand where I am and where I’m going.

Today, I’d like to share one such poem. Not because I think it’s great or terrific or what have you but because I think it provides a window into me. After giving it a read, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments or over on Twitter (@Dreamertide). The smaller hope is that it offers you some insight into me; my greater hope is that it sparks a conversation with you about yourself.

—

Tapestry (Or How I Came This Far)

Every loose thread–
the frizzy tangle
by which I recognized my life–
has come together
as one;
a knot bigger than me,
that seeks, in its vastness,
to consume.
What a stupid and superb question is
“Who am I?”
For so long, I couldn’t claim to know.
I could lie, yes.
I could weave a fine tale from each of those threads,
pulled together by an imagination
that has always sought to make the best
of little or nothing.
But even now that I know
who I am,
I still feel the gravity of each quantum string:
dangling from the core of myself,
begging to be re-analyzed
re-thought
re-examined.
I still feel the fear that I will unbecome–
the sweeping narrative
cut
short
by the subsummation of my soul
into gnashing madness.
It frightens me,
terrifies me,
and yet is powerless.
The Lord God once said,
“I Am Who I Am,”
and while I am certainly not
God
or anything approaching him,
I can’t help but find solace in those words.
I, too, am who I am.
No one person or force made me this way.
I am an amalgam of all that has come before this moment;
a gestalt
of memories, feelings, and thoughts.
I used to think I was a ghost,
barely seen, wrongly remembered,
but now I see that I’ve never been more alive.
The world scares me,
but I’ve used these loose threads
as an anchor.
I am imperfectly perfect.
I am afraid.
I am happy.
I am sad.
I am loved.
I am confused
encouraged
remembered
forgotten
more
more
more.
God once said, “Let there be light.”
I am.