I knew I had a manila folder packed away of all my poetry that I had written by hand in the early and middle 1990s. I had not seen or read these poems in twenty years. I did not want to read them, I could not read them because of what they contained was pain, immense pain. I had dared not to open those wounds for what it might unleash on me, but at this point in my effort to better understand where I was and who I was so that I might finish this book they had to be read and looked at with my now more mature eyes.
Reading my words dating back to 1993 in these poems I am surprised that I made it through that. There are many lines written that contain imagery and references to death and some form of romance I had with it then. They were not dramatic references to death, but quite accepting of the idea instead. Plenty of nature references are in there which for me is very true to the person that I am - the nature lover. Some of what I wrote was of course undeniably bad and thankfully never saw the light of day. I did realize that my mind was more open to new ideas in my early twenties which is a characteristic of youth, but some of the humor that I possessed even in my darkest words made me laugh.
Enough time seems to have passed that I have become detached from those poems to be able to read them again. Some of the poems are directly dedicated to people and others make vague references to people, but I know who those people are since they are dated.
A friend and someone that wanted to be my lover then was the only person I ever would allow to read my poetry. His name was Stan and I should write about him one day. He would have to be dead now given that so much time has passed and he was significantly older than I was then. I had tucked Stan away in my memory banks for the past couple of decades and left him there, but reading my poetry from that era brought him back to life for me. It is difficult not to have disgust for Stan and his motivations now that I am older and more experienced in life compared to the twenty-year old version of me that knew him, but I still have a soft spot for him. I knew what he wanted then and I never gave it to him, but I was okay with our friendship and today I probably would not be. I am harder and less open and that is unfortunate, but at least I realize it.
The more I dig and search the more questions I accumulate about myself while filling in a few blanks too. This book might be more about searching than I expected it to be. There are too many mysteries about myself that are in the woods or locked behind a barrier and I am chasing every lead I find. I fear not the truth, but a false path. Determination and some luck will guide me through this just as it did in 1993.
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