Wafraid

I started a creative writing club this year for motivated and talented young writers at my school. They're working weekly on novels, plays, and books of poetry to self-publish in April. I believe in practicing what I preach, in modeling, and in being a lifelong learner, never asking of my students anything I am unwilling to do myself. While I don't have the time to write a novel right now, I do occasionally feel big feelings that regular words just don't express enough, and I feel the urge to write down some poetic(ish) thoughts, so I figured, why not make a book of (rough, unedited, journal-like) poems to self-publish in April alongside the kids? I have three students who are my "editors" and who ask questions/give me feedback. Sometimes these poems can be quite personal and misunderstood by anyone else who reads them, like this one:

On Souls and Soulmates

(a poem for my beloved Paul on the third anniversary of his passing)

The ocean of memory, it ebbs and flows

And we zoom through space

And cells die and are reborn

And my heart keeps pumping

And I learn things about quarks and photons

And shadows

And the whole universe is singing its motion

Yet

You remain fixed in time and space and are impossible,

Impassable.

Ever a guide (though I am constantly

Lost)

I wander in the wilderness, maybe for forty years but I sure hope

Not (sorry).

I blew you three kisses as I left the garden, and

Three times “I love you” was engraved in rings, and

Three times the earth is moved around the sun.

Three times, so…

I guess you really mean it.

***

People reading that on Facebook at the time thought I was paying such a kind tribute to him, but they failed to see the depth of sadness and longing and anger and finality and giving-up-ness I really meant in it all. (That is my gift, I suppose...to wrap the brokenness up in smiley-faced wrapping paper with yellow bows and try to really mean it.)

However, sometimes, the words are QUITE easy to understand and are really just direct and simply put out there into the universe, like this one I absolutely needed to write tonight in the midst of overwhelming emotion over underwhelming and ordinary things:

Wafraid

I feel afraid about 97.2% of the time.

Not terrified, out of my wits, or shaking, but

(according to the thesaurus):

Worried.

Anxious.

Fearful.

Reluctant.

Alarmed.

Intimidated.

Disinclined.

So I guess I’m really “WAFRAID.”

I’m wafraid that words will fail me (though you’d think I’d be used to it by now).

I’m wafraid that I’ve been wrong all along about everything.

I’m wafraid that my best isn’t good enough

In labor,

In leisure,

In likings,

In love,

In life,

In life beyond life.

I’m wafraid that I’m leading others astray, however unintentional the wandering.

I’m wafraid that I’m unwantable and un-stay-put-able.

I’m wafraid that all my broken pieces can’t be put right again, even with gold.

I’m wafraid that I’m getting what I deserve.

I’m wafraid that someone will see...

Me.

Through me.

Past me.

Me as me was.

Me as me wants to be but never will.

Me looking at myself instead of Someone.

I’m wafraid that I’m actually magnificent light.

I’m wafraid that I’ll never learn how to turn it on.

I’m wafraid that that it might burn out too quickly.

I’m wafraid of the power of explosions.

I’m wafraid of a black hole.

I’m wafraid of feeling.

I’m wafraid of a heart past feeling.

I’m wafraid of answers I won’t accept, so I just stopped asking the questions.

I’m afraid that I’m afraid that I’m wafraid.

***

(Sometimes I write happy things, too. :) Stay tuned for more random insights into my soul in the months to come!

*DISCLAIMER: I do not claim to be a great poet, or even a good poet, or even really a poet at all. That's why my book is entitled "Waxing Poetic(ish)". But it's good for me as a means of coping with life, or at least a nice distraction from it, so I'll probably continue for at least a little while longer. Please judge it kindly. I'm wafraid of you, too. :)