It’s National Poetry Month and I thought, “Why not share some of my poems I wrote as a child.”
What a brilliant idea right?
Well, I forgot that my old poetry journal was nestled inside a box without a label, inside the hell that is our storage room. Yeah… Thankfully, after a few hours, my husband came to my rescue and found the dang box with my journal inside.
So, I sit down at my desk and start to flip through it looking for a poem to share when I realized something…
I was twelve years old when I started this journal. 12!
On every page I wrote something about love. Not a love for a family member or friend, or a love for a favorite toy or hobby. No, I wrote about love for a boy. I wrote about wanting and yearning for love and dealing with heartbreak. I wrote like I knew exactly what I was talking about!
If someone came up to me and asked if I understood what true love was as a teenager I would laugh and say, “No, of course not. What teenager does?” but now after looking through all the poems I really can’t believe I wrote what I did. I almost feel like someone must have taken control of my hands and wrote through me. Weird I know, but how else can you explain how I wrote this poem when I was 12yrs old:
Love?
What is love?
Is wanting a person love?
Is needing a person love?
Is thinking about a person every day, dreaming and yearning,
Is that love?
Is almost feeling that person against you love?
Is love good?
Is love bad?
Does anyone know what love means?
Do we treat love as a word or as a part of our soul?
Do we know what love can do?
Do we know it’s power, it’s strength?
Is love just the heat of passion or is when you’re standing still embracing each other?
Will love stay with you forever or will it fade away when time goes by?
Would you know if a man loves you by his eyes or in his touch, or in his kiss?
Is that enough to convince the soul?
Or does that leave another hole in the question about love?
What is love?
A side note to this poem:
Some how someone got wind of this poem back in 1997 and sent me a letter (in the mail) asking if they could publish it in a book. I was 15 , so I didn’t really believe it or understand what they were asking but I signed the consent form anyway.
in 1998 I got another letter in the mail stating that my poem had been published in a book called The Hand of Destiny by Diana Zeiger and Caroline Sullivan. Included in the letter was an order form to purchase the book if I wanted to. Back then my Mom and I were very poor, Like eating ramin noodles and popcorn for dinner kind of poor, so there was no way I was going to be able to purchase the book. Plus I felt like it was a scam to get you to send money for something that didn’t even exist.
I went through the following years jokingly saying I’m a published poet but not really believing it. Well, I just googled the title and found out that the book really does exist! Whose to say I’m actually in it but I’m just excited to find out there is a real book out there with that title. lol Maybe I will purchase it to see for myself.
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