Listen (Well)

If thinking yourself to death were a way to die, my funeral would have been ages ago. You see, I am prone to waiting. I will research and think myself into a state of doing absolutely nothing all while convincing myself that I'm actually being quite productive. (Put like that, me being a writer just makes sense!) It takes an embarrassing amount of something to get me moving, even if I know I ought to be doing so already. Which is kind of why I like the last third of LISTEN.

This is the part of the book where my grief and sadness had had their way with my mind and I finally started to feel motivated. Where I realized that I could no longer just sit with all those emotions and I had to start moving and doing. And honestly, as much as I truly love wrestling with thoughts and exploring concepts and researching everything under the sun, I really love that moment where I finally stand up and get stuff done. It's a scary, yet still exhilarating thing.

I like to think of this part of Inkling as the tipping point. It's the bit where things are less morose and start to gain some heated sentiments. I'll admit, I don't think of myself as a sad or angry person normally, but much of my poetry tends to have either a sorrowful or indignant cast, so . . . Maybe I am? Or maybe I'm not since I write all of those feelings away. However you slice it, the point is that the poems from here on are a little less, shall we say, allusive. The pieces become rather pointed and intentionally abrasive starting in the last section of LISTEN and carrying into FEEL.

And since we're wrapping up, I'm going to share one of my favorite poems from LISTEN to close us out. Incidentally, its the last poem in the section:

Magic exists in the realm of wording.

Choose carefully

What spells you cast on others:

Known or unknown,

Phrases grow, fester, infect.

Speak life where you can,

Truth when you must,

And learn to hold death

Captive on your tongue,

Behind a white cage.

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