Journey of the Heart

We all need to be heard... I was contemplating this need after a conversation that I had with a dear friend. I had shared a poem with him and he explained that it caused deep feelings to well from the depths his heart. He was sad and told me that he felt like crying. This was the exact feeling that I had experienced upon reading the very same poem that I had sent to him. The more that I thought about our exchange, the more I came to believe that I am at my most vulnerable with my writing when I am creating poetry. Somehow, this form of writing opens up the gates to my heart more than with any other type of writing is able to do. I also feel that poems, when read or heard, dig a little deeper into our souls than any other form of written medium. Further, I realized that when you have a very good friend, you can’t always hold back information that touches your own heart in an effort to spare their heart. We are on this earth to laugh and cry together. The following p...

I have been writing almost daily my entire life, but had never publicly shared any of it until I made a dare with myself last October. I thought to myself that on January 1, 2014, I would submit my first poem or article to someone. The more I thought about it, however, the more I felt that I should just take the leap and submit a poem on November 1, 2013. After all, I knew it would be rejected, so why wait for the New Year for bad news? As it turned out, my poem was accepted nearly immediately and I was elated. It was published just days later and since then my public writing has taken off. Six months have passed and I have now published 90-someodd poems and articles for various publications and journals. I was also asked to edit a friend’s book and loved the experience. I have met other writers and my life has been expanded and lifted like a helium balloon. I feel so blessed and overfilled with a new kind of joy that I haven’t experienced before. I do wish that I woul...

After my father took his life five years ago, I was completely devastated and broken…  I cried rivers of tears until my eyes were so swollen that I could barely open them. For a few days following his death I hallucinated that birds were flying around in my house---and I was not on drugs. After the initial shock wore off a bit, I went through all the stages of grief again and again. I think I will always be going through grief in smaller ways throughout my life. At some point, about 3 ½ years later, when I could think once again about the good memories of my dad, this poem just flowed out of me on Christmas Eve. Usually holidays are the hardest times without my father, but I believe I became more grateful for him after his death than before. The poem is not about my father’s death, but instead, celebrates the bond of love that we had and still have to this day. I know that he will always be alive inside of my heart. We have all come of age, loved and ...