Feelings & Poetry

Published: 2021-05-27

I’ve always been a very touchy feely type of person. I’m very much in touch with my emotions and tend to really dive deep into how I am feeling at a time. This can be both good and bad as when I’m on a high, I am on a real high but when I’m low I tend to spiral.

Growing up though, I never really found many outlets to release what I was feeling. My life was school then home, so whilst I had “friends” most were more school friends than people I could really be close to. And of course, though my mum was and is amazing, there is a limit to how much you can really open up to a parent.

So, I found when I was feeling a lot of things, I would retreat to my imagination. That’s right I was that kind of kid, I could stare off into space for hours, building a world in my head, building scenarios where I could express what I wanted through a huge dramatic speech… but in my head. I could have fantastic encounters with amazing people…again in my head. Where life was an adventure and I was the main hero with my own powers and the personality I wish I had…once again, in my head.

For people like me, the creative outlets I find are essential! Which is why I loved drama class. In that class I was whoever. I could do whatever. I can get as crazy as a character demands or as reserved as is necessary. I could turn off my brain and just fall into whoever I was at that time, it was a proper escape. I found, however, that I wanted to also express my feelings and so I tried poetry.

In my mind I was pretty good, because at least to me every word I wrote was true and was impactful! Looking back I’m pretty sure my poems were absolute nonsense but hey it is what it is. I actually got a poem published, which surprised me because it was based on an episode of One piece, an anime I loved. It talked about the blooming of cherry blossoms in the snow, because I was watching the drum Island arc. I remember reading the poem out during a school assembly and thinking to myself “Are these guys really serious? Cause I was kinda bullshiting when writing this”(though using whatever word 12 year old me meant for bullshit).

I recently was supporting my friend as she did a poetry reading for a small group of people. The poem was amazing, she really pulled me into her world and her thoughts, she’s really talented. The thing I love about such creative mediums is their ability to really translate emotion and connection. I loved her poem because I felt the hurt she was talking about having someone she loved fall out of love. I love acting because in that moment when I synchronise with how my character feels and I look out at the audience as they watch in attentive silence, I feel alive!

Poetry really is amazing! It was one of the first mediums I ever used to better understand myself. I love how word smiths paint a story that makes you…feel, and how every time you read it you get something new.

For that session with my friend, I also wrote a poem. I saw the time as an opportunity to write out some of the feelings I had. Honestly, I wrote it in 10 mins so it’s not that great, but it felt good to write again. Here it is: