Polaroids of the Heart: Tracing the Shadows of my Past
Hello all,
Welcome back to our beautiful, chaotic, and messy shores. I am so beyond grateful and happy you’ve set sail back here today…thank you. I hope you are all doing well this week. I, personally, have had a very productive, relaxing, and inspirational week, dating back to last Tuesday. In times like this, I thank a higher power every day for the people placed in my life as they spark such igniting, inspiring, and heartfelt conversations. Coincidentally, one topic I found my friend(s) and I diving into head first were the memories and stories from our childhoods…whether they’re good or bad. One of the points in these conversations that has always amazed me the most is the honor of depth that you are being given and let into by the other person you’re having a conversation with. There’s such beauty to it, of course when were are around our intermediate family or with our significant other these conversations can most times flow so easy and effortlessly, but when we are having them with a friend, it puts the harmony of rawness into an entirely new perspective.
This perspective has inspired me greatly this week to be a little bit more open and share some personal thoughts that I have kept in journals over the last couple years. This week we’re going back to, Rupi Kaur’s book, “Healing Through Words”, as I navigate us through the waters of “revisiting my younger self”, which is the name of this writing exercise. In this exercise, I am being asked to write about any topic, feeling, memory, or trauma from my childhood. I wrote about 7 different miniature poems (more like ideas) that I then compiled into one poem to better help weave my story together for this exercise. Before giving you these poems I think it is important to note that I wrote this exercise out, along with these poems, on May 7th, 2023, so my feelings, thoughts, and healing has changed tremendously…but they are all still very much real and personal.
After writing these 7 different miniature poems, I then broke them down and took my favorite parts from each one to compile into a longer poem that better tells my story…
If I could visit my younger self
I would go back to the day
When the laugh of lions didn’t scare me away
Into a world I was trying to leave astray.
A world that once
Smoked me up whole,
Making swimming pools out of my tears
That’d be dusted off of my cheek
Into ashtrays, disguised as the open wounds
Just for narcissist around me
To feel at peace;
Drinking from the sea of pain
They ripped me apart in
Because they had only knew
What they bled into me.
Thank you so much for your sailing along with me through these rapid tides this week. I cannot express how grateful I am for you, your heart, and your time. I hope you all have a peaceful, happy, and mindful week. Make sure to sail back here next week for more!
With great love always,
M.H. John