literary genius

i miss writing poems. i was prolific during high school and college. they were really a form of release for me since i did not do the journaling thing. most of the topics they covered were love - falling in and out of love, getting delusional since one is in love, bitching out on betrayal and rejection, and hoping for the best after getting hurt.

i did messy drafts then rewrote them on my poem notebook. somewhere along the way, friends borrowed it and connected with my poems. the notebook got passed around among classmates. some of the girls (i went to a catholic, all-girls high school) even requested that i make a poem for them. since i could relate to how they were feeling for their special someone (or i knew their stories well), i was able to make ones that they felt were tailor-made for them.

since they were outlets for me, my writing was driven by my emotions. i could not create a poem on a certain topic when asked, even if my life depended on it. i remember when i was asked to represent my class in a poem-writing contest to write about saint lorenzo ruiz, i was grasping at straws. good thing it wasn't returned to me with a grade, much like a writing assignment, or i would've died. i wouldn't have known how to act when classmates asked to see how i did. i knew it wasn't a good poem.

don't get me wrong; i just don't feel comfortable with a topic imposed on me and a deadline to finish it. when i get to think about a certain topic and i want to express my views, i am able to churn up such poems. cherished friendships, abortion, self-belief, the dog-eat-dog world of business (this was when i was already working), the world at peace, and teenage confusion are some of them.

i used to stick to rhyming verses. they were cute, yes, but i realized when i got older that free verse is closer to what i really felt about things. i wasn't racking my brain on what rhymed with "love". also, i had concepts - like featuring famous couples and hoping our love is like theirs, or using the senses to describe the pain of love leaving. but when i let go of them, writing my poems made unburdening my mind easier.

i miss writing poems... and the restless emotions inside of me that make me feel as if my heart is about to burst.