Me, Myself, and Poetry

Hello all,

I hope you are all doing well this week. Thank you so much for taking the time and energy to surf back here to read my thoughts, I appreciate it greatly! This last week has been an interesting one, for myself personally. For some reason, I feel like I have been all over the place this week, from my thoughts, to my emotions, and even my actions. My anxiety has been on 10 this week, my energy and spirit just don’t feel right (I personally blame the full moon we just had hahaha), and my jaw could not be more sore from clenching it, but the important part is I am still very much breathing, healthy, and alive. When I go through my little random episodes of anxiety like this, one thing that helps me the upmost is writing. For this weeks journal, I’d like to talk about how writing poetry has always helped me as one of my coping mechanisms.

I began writing poetry at a pretty young age, I always say it’s one of the first things I ever learned to do that really just stuck with me throughout life. I can remember being in first or second grade and reading the poem “Tell Me” from the book “Where the Sidewalk Ends” by Shel Silverstein, and just being so captivated by the satire and harmony that the poem captured. There was just something about that poem and it’s meaning…wanting to be told all these beautiful things but yet also wanting to be told the truth about yourself just broke 7 year old me down, but also made me start to realize the different elements that make up poetry. Fast forwarding 10 years, at 17, I really began to use writing poetry as a form to express my thoughts, emotions, mind, and overall my everything. If I’m being honest I felt like life was over for me during this time period, I think I would also hope for it to be over at times also. I was going through a lot of deep personal shit around this time that just made me lose myself in the worst way possible and aside from being in therapy and having a great amount of support around me, I just couldn’t find the hope in anything. I would come home from school and sleep till it was dark out and stay up and just write, cry, and read until 3-4 a.m. Moving a couple more years ahead, at 20 years old I went through yet another insane transitional period (that was very much needed). However, during this time I had nothing but hope…I wanted to get better and be better for myself, the only thing is, I didn’t know where to start. I remember one night during summer of 2022, after recently just moving back into my parent’s house, I decided to go through some boxes I had in my closet. Opening these boxes, I found journals and loose papers that I had genuinely forgot I had wrote and written in. While reading through these pages and pages of my own thoughts, emotions, fears, and overall my everything…I felt like I knew who I was for a second. Every box I had shrunk myself to fit into suddenly just fell apart and I felt just so exposed to this person I was longing so hard to be…It no longer felt like I was standing in front of a stranger. Throughout reading my own personal writings, I saw the many different journeys I voyaged through, from being thrown into waters, to learning to swim and eventually getting tired, letting myself drown only to be reborn a different version again. Whether the version was for the best or not, reading through every single one of my own writings helped me gain an introspective view on the kind of person I am building myself to be, and I am happy to now be documenting this journey right here…with all of you.

Looking through the broken mirror

I can now see everything differently

The reflection of hidden pain

No longer scares me away

Instead I embrace it, no longer letting it

Wrap around my body like a daisy chain

Thank you all so much again for taking the time to read this week’s journal. Also, Thank you again for the support of myself, my writings, and my website. It has been one entire month since I have shared the world of M.H. John with you all and it has personally been the most beautiful experience…I thank you beyond. Sail back here next week for more!

With great love always,

M.H. John