Recently, my heart broke twice in one 24 hour period. Why mention that? Because I think that from a crack in the heart a billion words can spill. Angry words. Sad words. Longing words. Grief-filled-blood-on-the-page words. Now, I am not suggesting that one go out and look for a broken heart. But I think all of us have been wounded at one time or another, and that with a careful cut we can bleed all over again. When I was a teenager and I wanted to call up that horrible feeling I would sit and imagine my family all dying in a car accident, or my boyfriend dying of a horrendous disease. After I got myself in a real “lather”, as my mother would call it, I could write all kinds of angsty poems. And with time those blood covered poems translated into rich imagery for later pieces. It is a “practice”, a ritual of some sort that I still use to call forth the muse. Now it is lost love, not car wrecks that do it.
Feb 102007