This is my first draft of a spoken word poem that I want to say in public. Part of my testing out the waters on a good mid life crisis. I know it breaks so many rules of poetry, the rhythm is all over the place but in my head I think it flows in a round about way so far., plus I am bipolar so why shouldn’t my poetry be up and down, round and round.
My hands grow clammy, start to shake as my heart thumps hard, racing to break.
I stepped up here to express myself, stress myself, grow myself. My ears burn as if on fire, I lose myself in this feeling of fear, of which I never tire. This is my moment right here and now, to break away from my silence, to let my inner wolf howl, my totem, my spirit, broken and bound.
Do I stumble and fall, walk away from it all, or can I find my strength in the storm, can I truly be reborn? Torn and tattered, my mind is scattered, losing the words so carefully crafted.
I try to find my flow, my rhythm in time, I reach for it and discover that I suppressed it, oppressed it, threw it in a box to break it, because my life could not take it. It withered away to dust. How can I fake it?
I am a broken man, afraid to tread where angels have been, I doubt my soul will ever have peace, I wonder if it is mine to even seek. I cry out to God but cannot speak, my throat is dry, my knees too weak. I stagger on into the darkness, away from the light, begging for tears to flow, knowing they won’t.
I stepped up here to express myself, stress myself, grow myself, only to realize I lost myself so long ago that my words ring out hollow in this expanse where my soul should go.