What got me started on this path

A long time ago I used to be pretty physically destructive.  The only thing that mattered was anger and hatred and how I expressed it to everybody around me.  Most of the surviving works (how few they are) appear in the beginning of my first book POEMS: AN EXPLORATION OF LIFE.  To be honest I was a powder keg just waiting to blow up and it quite literally was eating me alive inside.  From high school to the Army I would occasionally write a verse or two but nothing serious.  It totally reflected my attitude as well as my somewhat split personality of longing for better things.

The main catalyst for writing though came from a major depression I experienced where I truly was on the cusp of life and death.  Anybody who has walked that path and lived to tell the tale can understand how nasty things can get.  How you search your life to find just that one little thing to keep you from pulling the trigger and ending it all.  How each day is like living a year in agony.  Writing became my outlet because nobody wanted to hear what I was trying to say.

My depression allowed me to self analyze my life in ways I never could while in a normal state of mind.  I guess I should be thankful for the experience, and to be honest, I really am.  I was able to peel back the layers of memories, like an onion, to relive all the crap from my childhood as well as the relationships I was experiencing at the time.  Everything was jumbled, happening at the same time, feeding off of each other, so intense.  The poems I wrote then, which are the final half of my first book, despite their desperate nature at times, were healing.

Writing is healing.  It changed my life.  I literally, through depression and writing, was able to drop the albatross from about my neck much like the Ancient Mariner.  In fact the feeling was so much the same as his it is amazing.  If you haven’t read that poem you should check it out, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.  It is so worth the read and is until this day one of my favorite poems to read and reread.

If I hadn’t had that outlet of writing my feelings out I probably wouldn’t be here writing this now.  Every person I am blessed to be in contact with when they have problems I tell them write them down.  I usually get looked at strangely, like I am an idiot, as well as not understanding a thing about what they are going through.  Truth is I don’t have to understand a thing about their issues to know what can help if they allow themselves the opportunity to try it.

Well that about sums up my early adventures in writing.  I continue to write when the muse is whispering in my ear.  I am also finishing off my second book, hopefully to be published soon.  Who would of thought that I would of become a productive member of society, hmmm…… just thinking that is getting my inner rebel riled up!