What If?

What If

“ All this pain
I wonder if I'll ever find my way
I wonder if my life could really change, at all
All this earth
Could all that is lost ever be found?
Could a garden come out from this ground, at all?

You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us...”

What if I could get inspiration for poetry without having to go through all the muck and mire to get it? What if junior high had been easy? What if I hadn’t lost my grandfather in high-school? What if this long  season of singleness  suddenly just didn’t exist? What if every bit of self-doubt just disappeared without a trace?

What would my poetry sound like? Would the words still resonate as deeply? Would all those nights of daydreaming, of hopes and dreams, of things that could be or had been still create the same message?

I could stay up all night pondering the many times my heart ached so deeply, words could not be uttered. Wondering, just for a moment, what it would be like if I could wave a magic wand and have it all disappear. What if I could take back every wasted second I spent lamenting and feeling sorry for myself?

Or…

What if I pick myself up. What if I stand up tall and wipe the tears from my eyes and walk forward. Now, what would happen if I took every negative thought about myself that’s been bottled up for the past 10 years and use it for good?

That’s why I write poetry.
I write because there’s a fire beneath my feet that germinated in that ugly and painful muck I spoke of earlier. A fire whose embers glow brighter every time I choose to take something bad and make it beautiful.