Exploring emotion through poetry

[alee_grrl]

One little thing before I get into the intro for today's poem. I was very inspired by the poetry recordings shared by luzula during her hosted week, and those shared by jjhunter in connection with that week. This particular poem is a very effective one when read outloud. So I decided to experiment with that and have included my performance at the end of the post (after the poem for those who prefer to read). It is a rough recording as I do not have a good microphone as of yet, and it is my first take. Still I think you might enjoy it. :) Now on with the post.

I grew up in a household where emotional expression, especially of the darker emotions, tended to be dangerous and as a result I learned to suppress my emotions rather early. This can have a dangerous effect on the psyche, as it can lead to disassociation of emotion entirely. After entering therapy I learned that I needed to find healthy ways to explore the emotions I'd distanced myself from. It can be a scary process delving into the dark waters of emotion with no real idea of how to cope with what lies beneath the still surface. Writing turned out to be one of the best ways of exploring these inner waters, and poetry turned out to be expressing their distilled essence. I have found that acknowledging the emotion, then exploring the feeling, working to understand the emotion and its causes, and ultimately expressing that understanding in some fashion (visual art, poetry, journal entry) helps me deal with many situations now. I'm currently working on a poem that deals with my emotional response to Hurricane Irene (which was a devastating storm here in Vermont), though that poem is no where near ready to post yet. Instead I will share a poem written at a time when I was first acknowledging the deep wells of anger I harbored. This is actually the poem that directly preceded Freedom Song of the Jigsaw Girl in my life. I felt trapped by my life and circumstances, and though I had hope that I would soon be leaving and starting a new life part of me wondering if there was really a way out. This was the poetic result:

Silently Screaming

Your verbal ejaculate washes around me, over me,
tinted with red anger and black fear. Body frozen, my
mind stumbles, clinging to any thoughts that flit by.
My mouth opens to spill passion
words back at you. Words throttled by some
sliver of self that still wishes to wrap its arms around you.
Crescent marked palms sweat; eyes shine too brightly.
And I stand silently screaming
amidst a stream of words that bruise me, bleed me.
Passions spent, your footsteps echo down the street.
And I am left bleeding invisibly, wondering
if I will always be silently screaming.