Despite our best intentions and well laid out plans the odyssey of life has a way of charting its own course. Oftentimes, and over our own objections toward a particular trajectory, life has a way of leading us down some very precarious, unpredictable and dark paths.
One way that I have learned to navigate through these treacherous waters is by writing.
When I write, I endeavor to write from a place of reflection, my poems laying out emotions of a life once lived and the continued journey of a place between that place and a new place of hope.
Although not always successful, I attempt to express myself in a truth that avoids sanitizing the messy parts. Life is sometimes messy, and life is painful. Yet, those experiences are truth. On both sides of these truths, if I look, are beauties steeped in hope.
I write poetry because I want to heal, and I also want to move people. I want to stir up a boiling pot of emotions. Whether it be hate, anger, fear, beauty of even love, I want people to feel something. I want people to find their own place in my writing. Perhaps they’ll say, “Hey, I feel or have felt that way too.” Even if they are not lockstep with every word, if my poems trigger them to examine their own
Even if they are not lockstep with every word, if my poems trigger them to examine their own emotions and propels them on a journey of understanding, even healing, then maybe I had had a small part in writing something of value.
The most significant, or identifying DNA of my writing, comes in the form of remembering my past before the disasters, (which I can tell you are many), with an eye towards all the good things I can see beyond those disasters. Sometimes this manifests into visions of my imagination, but a lot of times it’s more literal as to my view just outside my prison window. I do not always write in this discipline. As a matter of fact, I rarely write with any discipline at all—it’s purely experience, emotion and feeling. However, if I were boxed into a style, I would say that my writing lends itself to hope combined with a brief encounter with darkness. I do not shy away from amalgamating both realities.
One of the consequences of being in prison is that you are in perpetual state of your immediate circumstance. Being in prison is a constant reminder of the most painful, regrettable and darkest days of your life. Why am I here, is a mental and emotional game we play with ourselves, a relentless drumbeat of who you are that fails to recognize any good you have done in the past or any hope of a life of goodness you may live in the future.
I think all people, including myself and regardless of if you are in prison or not, have down moments. If you are able to use those moments as a catalyst, or fuel to move you to the good things, then these are reflection areas. Self-loathing is natural, but keeping oneself manacled to doom and despair is a dead-end street.
Einstein once said, “We can’t answer our problems with the same kind of solution that got us into them.”
I was once asked, “How can you write with such tender sensitivities and visceral beauty, when you’re living such a horrible existence in prison?”
My response, “I don’t always write within the walls of radiance. I can and do write some very dark truths: but the reason I write in the manner in which I write is to stay out of that darkness.”
All the steps that one may take before this moment will never be as important as the very next step a person takes. That is why my writing is always mindful of being one step behind my past and one step ahead of it.
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