The Tower of Babel-Poetry

Poetry

If silence is the foundation on which I built my peace, poetry is the pillar that held the roof in place. After years of accepting silence as my only ally, I learned that there was a way to say what I needed to, without saying it.

First, I found rhyme. My father was a poet, and after hearing many of his works with great passion and romance in his voice, I tried to mimic that same love for words. I would spend hours saying words over and over and hoping to come to one that rhymed so that I may string the words together and bring life to paper. I wrote little rhymes like:

What if all I deserve is sadness?

What if all I have earned is grief

What if there really is a god?

What if I don’t believe?

I started carrying little notebooks around, and those notebooks became my best friends. I never had to be quiet anymore. I could say whatever I thought, whatever I felt, and the best part was that I was still strong for my family. I could keep their secret in silence while feeling my pain in poetry. I had established balance.

Writing poetry was the first time in my youth when I found a voice. I realized that while the people I loved demanded silence, I could still have feelings and ideas. It was through writing poetry that I would allow myself to have some semblance of a life. My passion and ability for poetry grew, as did my trust in people. This changed when my precious words were stolen.

Have you ever had Déjà vu with your own work? You hear someone say something, and you think, wait a minute, I wrote that? 

I was at my weekly meeting for the National Junior Honor Society when a friend of mine, Angel, came to me and said, “Hey, do you know Amanda S? Well, look, she wrote a poem for me. That is so cool, huh? She really likes me.” 

In all my naivety, I eagerly awaited the words that my classmate had formed for my friend. As he sang the words from the page, my heart froze. I tried to keep eye contact while frantically searching my bag with my hands for my notebook. It was gone. I asked to see the paper, and it was written in her handwriting, but those were not her words; they were mine. She had stolen my poem. The only peace I knew, the voice I had waited so long to develop, was stolen. My heart sank; I acted. 

“She didn’t write this for you, Angel; I did! Now where the hell is she?” I was furious. I remember her walking into our class right at that moment because fate loves me, I suppose, and I marched up to her and demanded my book back. She gently shook her head side to side as if to imply she had no idea what I was requesting. Now I am not an angry person. When I’m at my most ferocious, I appear entirely calm. However, I was 13, and there was nothing on Earth or in hell that would have kept me from taking my notebook back, and this girl saw that in an instant. She retrieved my notebook from her backpack and handed it to me. “You’re a FAKE!” I screamed. I yanked it from her hand and tore through the pages to find the poem. I shoved it in Angel’s face and said, “Here! She is a fake! A phony. A liar.” He pleaded with me to calm down, but how could I? They had no idea what I had been through. They had no idea of my hurt. This wasn’t ‘some poem on a page’; it was my life. It was the only thing I had to call my own, and they stole it.

I spent many years after this not sharing my work with anyone. I had lost my voice again. At twenty-one, my gift to myself was publishing my childish poetry into a book that would be mine and bear my name forever. Over the years, I wrote of love, loss, and fear of war after 9/11, what it felt like when you lost a child, my suicide notes that never came to fruition but rhymed. At twenty-one years old, I had lived more life than most people will in sixty years, and for the first time since I was 13, I broke my silence. 

My family and I do not discuss what happened because it would destroy all of them; my silence is their foundation too. Today, at thirty-one years old, ten years later, I have kept my voice. I have spoken of everything except my foundation until now. I still write poetry, quite often. I have found that when I’m unable to process my thoughts or feelings, my subconscious sends me the words in a poem. While silence kept my family alive, poetry saved my life. Here is one of my favorites. I keep it wrapped up in paper in my wallet, a reminder to love myself and never surrender my voice again:

I met someone not long ago, 

She was strong, vibrant, free

I saw her standing there alone,

She reminded me of, well, me.

She was in no hurry to meet someone 

She had no place to be

I wanted to see her next moves

So, I stood still, to watch her, to see

I stood watching this girl,

This woman, tall and fair

She had long legs, and tired eyes,

Hidden behind long hair.

I began to see the cracks in her

The ones she had tried to hide

They were hidden here behind her smile

Some ran a mile wide.

She had seen some darkness in her years

She had also seen some light

She allowed neither to consume her 

She stood proud, ready for a fight

She’d known gentleness amid her life

She had also felt brutality and pain

You could tell her you loved her 1000 times,

Each time would be in vain

See, she didn’t love herself quite yet

She tried to fill her time with someone

Insisting that if she found true love

It would mend the damage others had done

She thought the strength lacked in her arms 

Could be found in someone else’s 

She reminded herself that all could be well

If no one throws stones at glass houses

It didn’t matter anyway,

No one looked close enough to see

The cracks that tore apart the heart

That now belonged to me.

You see, this is a letter to my lover

A goodbye one at that,

I met this woman along the way,

And now I can’t look back.

I want to know her every curve

The depth of every crack. 

I want to know her every smile

Wipe every tear that she has held back.

I want to keep her warm at night,

And be her breeze of summer air

Show her that justice does exist

Even if life isn’t fair

I want to love her beyond her pain

I want to know her beyond my reason

I want anyone she gives herself to 

To be treated as a conspirator to treason

For in giving herself away, 

She commits a crime against herself

How can she give up a treasure

When she doesn’t understand her wealth

I want to hold her deep and true

I want to help her to see clearer

I want this woman to love herself

This woman in my mirror.

I have long since learned to love the woman in my mirror, though sometimes I need a reminder to love her. With age came wisdom, and because I cannot recite the verse to everyone I meet, I instead learned to speak in metaphors.