When Poetry Complicates You

In an attempt to write a poem about a dear friend, I wrote a very deep and rather disturbing poem about a fawn that loses his father immediately after birth. Because the title of the poem was faith, I thought I could get away with it, but I realized there was so much surrounding the events of that loss and the idea of faith seemed incongruent. Most times, my work does this to me. I am beaten down to a pulp and arrested to tell the truth. If ever there is a time I want to hold back, a cuss word, death, murder, rape, it strangles me and says "you must get it out and tell the story."

Another friend complained to me that one must control his or her muse :You cannot allow them to go to places that are too violent, too rough; you must not be shaken by that demon of writing that makes you so psychotic because it only wants to tell a story of for example mothers who sell their children for wealth.

What ails me as a writer is not the fear of speaking my mind or writing my deepest feelings but making sure people do not label me by what I write. My sister always says my stories/poems are from my unconscious or even from experiences in our family. I tell her yes, but not entirely. I create my own world and use the power of words to allow the characters to make the right decisions.

Maybe, my dependency on writing is my need to have power in a world even though it might be imaginary. When I write, I want my words to take people out of their happy place into their philosophical phase. If they ever looked into a mirror and thought "I am beautiful," after reading my work they should think "it is only a reflection."