Tic-Tock-Tic was the first poem I wrote outside of grade school. Yes, I had suffered a romantic disappointment and was a tad bit shattered by it, at the time. I know hardly enlightened, but it was what it was, and I learned from the experience.

The poem was meant to represent the chronic suffering that the pining of unrequited love can wreak on an individual. It was also meant to make fun of my seriousness over the whole matter. It really was time for me to let it go. This melodramatic piece of word play was not just my first poem, but my first poem on the way to many. many more; it was also step one to healing over the said romantic disappointment.

It wasn't just the rejection that hurt, sure that hurt a lot. But as the seasons passed, I never actually ever got to years, thankfully, But as the seasons passed, poetry claimed me and through verse, free and otherwise, and with more than little bit of meditation, I freed myself from a fascination that really wasn't worth it and discovered a creativity I had no idea existed inside me.

I once had an an online critic tell me my life sucks. I was feeling pretty good at that moment, and so I asked him how he possibly knew this. He replied he had read my poetry. So there I sat teetering between being grateful that someone had indeed taken the time to read enough of my word to conclude I was living a miserable Sylvia Plath-type existence; and also wanting to explain that no .. the poems he'd read were just a slice of my emotional range, and that most of the time I do not walk about like a heart-sick emo, my blue suede shoes splotchy from my own tears.

Rather poems are emotional snapshots for a poet, for this poet anyways. Poems tell the reader how the writer was feeling at any one given moment. They do not tell you how a poet feels all the time. Not even close. We tend to immortalize the more heightened emotional moments in our writing. A whole collection of the most forlorn, unrequited love poetry can be composed by one jolly happy-go-lucky individual, whenever he is not stabbing at his own heart with his metaphorical quill.

Poetry can brings out our deeper emotions and some of them are sad, and even dark and desperate. A poet's job is to be truthful about her emotions and thoughts, to be vulnerable, but that doesn't mean we are constantly morose. But it does mean we have to brave enough to be seen, if only through our words, to be truly seen and to be brave enough to be examined.

Still Life and Paper Cuts is one of my favorite poems in Domesticate the Heavens, because when I write a poem and put it out to the world, to love or hate, to judge, to be judge over; I hope I laid it all out, offered a banquet of my thoughts and emotion. Yes, I admit. I had to have felt sad to write a poem like this. I admit I love and when that love is lost, so to speak. Love is never really lost, but it sure can feel that way. I admit to truly missing another human being.

But guess what, I felt a little less sad after having written Still Life and Paper Cuts. Actually a lot less. Poetry, like our dreams, meditation, and prayer is mind medication.The poem you write, regardless of how it is received, or what others assume about you because of your words; the poem you write will heal and enlighten as long as you do your best to fill your verse with truth. Writing to express yourself and create. You truth.

There is room for all kinds of poetry; there is room for all kinds of creativity. But one thing for certain, poetry and art create a little more room in you, your mind.

When you embrace your own creativity and a nameless faith, go ahead and name it if you must, but remember, you can't define it, for it is the root of all creativity. How can that be defined? But when we embrace creativity without expectation, we inevitably find truth, beauty, and healing along the Way.

So put that pen to paper and write yourself some poetry and let the world feast on it as it may.