The Poets

symphonies compose — when poets make sheet music out of prose

Ask a poet just how they bleed, and they might let you read them on a bloodstained page. Words like bittersweet notes, filled with unhappy endings and all the stories in between. Then you might believe, they are just like you. Trying to make a way through this treacherous human experience, fumbling around in the dark — feeling for something to hold onto. You and I both know — you can’t keep hold of anything or anyone for longer than they’re meant to stay. Just like you can’t hold onto the sun after sunset, now that the moon is what’s reflecting in your eyes.

But what there is, that is sometimes missed — is how it all feels in the now of the moment. The sunlight on your palms, that someones breath against your skin, the falling in love — the crushing heartache — the rainfall from any cloud, the snowflakes on your fingertips — that are barely there before they are gone.

You might wish to catch a falling star, but — what if you actually could? Wouldn’t you rather spend whatever little time you had together — just soaking in the energy it would bring — instead of being so occupied with plotting ways to hold it captive for eternity — that you end up missing the whole damn thing? The latter leads only to the place where the brokenhearted reside, spending endless hours and days thereafter — in the wasteland of ‘woulda — coulda — shoulda’.

I write because sometimes it’s the only way I know how to speak. Otherwise, it starts to feel like a kind of ironic torture I suppose. Like picking up a pen only to find the ink has run dry. The slow realisation that you might choke — on the pain felt from the lump being formed from your thoughts that are now stuck in the back of your throat. Tells its own story, of words that long for space to breathe — and the poet, who longs only to sit in front of a blank page and bleed.