I started writing poetry when I was much younger. It was a writing medium I thought I would never get involved with, but it’s one of the few I keep coming back to again, and again. In some ways, it is extremely personal. Like keeping a diary, but sharing it with the world. Obviously, you could write poetry for just yourself. I have found that sharing poems, making them public helps me work through and overcome things that can be overwhelming.

Recently, I’ve ventured back to poetry writing. The last 1-2 years have been difficult. With Covid-19, my family was extremely lucky we didn’t lose anyone to the virus, but we still lost a lot of people.

Right when the pandemic began, for some reason I had reactivated my Facebook account (can’t remember why now) and saw a lot of the same text that started with “RIP Hillary”. It turned out I lost a close, childhood friend to a drug overdose. She grew up right around the block from me when I was very young. We played in elementary school together and grew distant in middle school. She had a family and left two children behind.

Earlier this year, we lost our cousin Vincent unexpectedly. He was young and taken far too early. Vincent was a fighter to the end having battled with Charge Syndrome for all of his life. The funeral, wake, and cemetery were difficult to get through.

And recently, we lost a close family member on my dad’s side to a heart attack. She was a grandmother to my cousins. This loss, as most are, was also unexpected. It was only months ago when I had spoken with her at my Grandma’s house on Mother’s Day. We had spoken for at least an hour.

The impact all of these losses have had on me have started to build up. I have not been dealing with them well and I’ve gravitated back to poetry to help me through. I had forgotten how therapeutic poetry writing can be. It’s been about 2 weeks since I started writing and sharing my poetry again, and I’m already starting to feel better.

I tend to be a very closed off person and I try to actively avoid talking about my personal life. But I’ve realized through all of this that life is too short to worry about what others think. In the end you have one life and you might as well live it the best way you know how. For me, right now it’s writing and sharing my poetry.