Writing slams me against uncomfortable situations. Sometimes an image I want to use in a poem comes from a dark place inside me. I struggle with myself about whether to haul it to the light.
It is hard to write if I favor only the good parts, happy times, moments of delight. I need to honor the times in my life when things don't go well, the times of bitterness and anger, times when I feel lost.
Writing provides a path and a place to acknowledge my darkness, secrets, fears, anger and pain, to come to terms with them and let them go.
I can choose to share the writing or not. But the writing itself is a catalyst to release what needs to dissipate.
In order to write, to be a poet, I need to bring all of myself to the page, the dark and the light. Both are parts of me.
Together they make me whole.
