I'm Back

Ahhh to feel my fingers stroke the keys yet again...to lay waste to the monsters in my head by casting them into the light upon these pages...I won't allow that silly number, or lack of quantifiers listed under "followers" to control me any longer. Nor will I ache over the fact that my best friend will never read the words that come straight from my heart that only he knew first. I am not going to take the words of one person or even many and let it still my hand. Nothing will keep me from pouring my soul into this medium for this, is my God... this is my religion... my saving grace. Nearly twenty-five years ago it began and who am I to challenge the fates of my true calling?

I was twelve years old. For some reason this was the year that my life seemed to alter the most: I finished 6th grade with a best friend named Allen and during that summer I realized he was a boy--let the bad poetry begin. I met my best friend's cousin, which would be my husband 10 years later--cue the teenage angst plagued upon my college ruled bound paper. I became a woman, as my mother tried to explain without making eye contact in her Catholic way--now throw in some physical incentive when my emotions were screwy and Judy Blume, watch out. My 6th grade teacher, whom I adored, sat me down and said she cared, "what do you want to be when you grow up Catherine and has anyone asked you that?" A nurse was born in that moment--this is what created a large facility's recognized poem and there will be more. 

See, every one of those moments stirred inside my heart and mind, sensations I didn't know how to control. I was unable to process them. I was never the girl to talk to my friends candidly. My family was so dysfunctional, I felt more normal than them so scratch that outlet. So there I was laying on my bed, racked with feelings that were threatening to overwhelm when words began appearing in my head. The words ran over my eyes and every fiber of my being as a rainbow does for a child who has seen it for the first time. I searched for help, meaning and I found paper and pen instead.

At first the process was more rudimentary such as random words, brainstorming. A diary was introduced. The words kept speeding through my mind. I wrote some more. Then one day eight lines of the worst poem I ever wrote was produced. Every line roughly detailing my fears of success, failure and just staying alive were represented on that tree that sacrificed itself for my prose. Yes, seldom will you find a "happy" cluttering of words from my fingers because happiness needs no help; it can stand on its own, in its own glory. Give me tears. Give me pain. Sound the trumpets at all the undue stress that remains...that is what you'll find in my words. You will see the manifestation of my soul bearing witness to the atrocities and the fears of my life and everyone or thing that touches it in some way. You will understand that these words are wrenched from my very being in order to make sense of this life, to experience joy again, to ease the burdens that a life worth living finds. If, for some reason you don't understand that then I suggest you put a pen in your hands, or lay your fingers upon the cold keys and tell me what you write about. You just might find something as interesting and shocking as you found my words.