Humble Beginnings

I feel like I've grown a lot as a writer in the 10+ years I've been writing. I still have, in it's original state, one of the first poems I wrote and the very first one I read in front of an audience. I just read it and have to say, it's not bad. Not bad at all.

I remember a day when I couldn't read my own work without being critical and saying it really wasn't that great. But someone has recently taught me how to read my own writing from a reader's perspective rather than the writer's. It's made a huge difference.

So with all that being said, here is one of my first poems. Circa 2005 - 2006.

Yesterday I cried, a blank sheet of
paper staring me in the face,
wanting to write but words escape
my mind - are my feelings really
that profound and thought provoking?
It doesn't have to be perfect
for life is far from it.
Who am I that I can't find myself
because I can only create
myself, or so I once read.
I simply have an empty shell,
a mere existence, with the
years speeding by like a bullet train,
my life a blur of fields and mountains
and cities to stop and breathe,
but when I stop I am lost beyond reason,
afraid of going any which way
for fear of running in the wrong
direction.
Afraid of losing of what little
of me I already know.
I know that he comes to me
in my dreams, that most private
state of my consciousness when
that intricate web of emotion
lingers in his touch, his skin
upon mine whispering secrets
of mysteries of the heart.
Confusion pursues those dreams
I long to be a reality and
where guidance is due, I turn
my eyes to the only Father
I not only love, but like --
Letters to God they are my sweet
relief, venting and mending to someone
rather than to that blank sheet
of paper. How can I blame Him
for every thought I feel wen his
very breath is my own?
Yesterday I cried to the uncertainties
I fear, how can the puzzle pieces
of my life become more clear?
The puzzle pieces that are scattered
here and there, back on that
bullet train where childhood should
have gotten off and when I realize
damn I'm an adult responsibility
hits me, stopping me in my tracks,
afraid to go forward and not
being able to go back.
In 26 years I'll be able to say,
"Yesterday I cried, a blank sheet
of paper staring my in the face
and I began writing with my tears."
And in the end I'll burn those pages
so that I - I will return to dust.