turn the page

I want to write a poem. I'm in a poem writing mood, but I'm terrified of what will come out if I give in. Words are powerful and evocative, and if I allow them to manifest what I'm feeling....I don't know. I'm scared. This is usually the point that I quickly grab a book and pour myself into it's pages, allowing my own creative energies and thoughts merge and fuse with the author and the words they have poured out in the pages of my book. Writing is not a passive process. When I write I often find myself exhausted afterwards, like part of the essence of my life has actually been drained away and placed within the words that now either inhabit a computer screen or a shabby notebook that gets shoved back into the dark recesses of my desk drawer. My heart pounds when I'm truly writing. I find that I often lean closer and closer to the computer screen, as if I will be sucked into it's abyss, never to return. I'm scared of that raw power. I feel it pulling me from the places I know and I shrink back from it. Reading another's soul is beautiful to me, and in a way it's a cop-out. I do it so often, I think, because I'm too afraid to do it myself. I'm afraid of how vulnerable real writing makes me. Poems are scary business. To me they seem like snapshots of a person's soul, and frankly, I don't want you to see into my soul thank you very much. You might laugh. You may look in and see something you think is horrible and run away, or even worse, you may rifle through the pages upon pages of my soul, painfully tearing apart the pages that have been stuck together for years and then decide that you don't like this book after all, and put it is away to pick another shinier, more beautiful book. I guess technically this is showing you a glimpse into the pages of my soul. Maybe I'll delete this post as soon as I finish typing, but part of me hopes not for books are not meant to be hidden on the bottom of bookcases. Books aren't meant to gather dust and cobwebs and the smell of disuse. They are meant to be marveled in. They are designed to please and bring light to the dark. They are fated to be loved.