The time I wrote my first poem, and why I own the right to cringe.
So, I turned 27 today. Happy Birthday, asshole!
Ten years ago, I wrote my first poem. It was the first-anything creative I had ever tried to do. You see, back then writers in my eyes were the ones with hippie hair, thick moustaches and fancy clothes that looked just the right amount of poor. Writers weren’t born into honest, working-class, STEM happy families who didn’t approve of arts. Writers didn’t live in a small, one-pony town in a random corner of the world. Writers were cool people who starved. Words came out of them like Greek yoghurt, in the morning after. Writers wrote fat books and fatter checks. They beded pretty women and got into bed with prettier men. Writers, according to the 17-year-old me, were a myth, untouchable and the unimaginable. How could I ever have pictured being one, when my then-perceived reality were far from it?
One day, I picked up the paper, shat whatever came to my mind and called it a poem. The inherent need to be something, need something, become something overpowered me. Of course, topped off by my raging teenage hormones and a sense of self-importance that boderlined on narcissism. This is the story of my brief introduction to creative writing. It was then short-lived because of a severe lack of confidence. You see, I wasn’t a hundred percent “That bitch” back then. I did not put in the effort to learn, to practice. I simply gave up on the idea that I could actually do this for a career. It took years of crappy jobs and existential dread for me to stop dicking around and get real with what I wanted out of life. I sucked at math and I was a terrible engineer. (I still am) I couldn’t save a lightbulb to feed myself. Who was I kidding! (My parents, lol)
Reality seemed worse than my fear. It was survival instincts that kicked in first. Cliche? Or primitive? Don’t care. I had no way than to make something of myself to escape the noises inside me and something far worse than that, the drowning, subversive crowd outside that never seemed to have a surface to let me breathe. Sounds pompous? I know. Everybody wants to be different, which makes us all the more similar, boring, a cliche. The word is ambition fuelled by a greed for identity that is constant only when it’s constantly changing. I am no different. I am a simple woman who likes simple things, only when it is exaggerated, serving my benefits.
Money, men, women, fame, food, sex, love, vengence, everything that sums up to the breath I take at the end of the day defines itself as satisfaction. Writing gives me that, tenfold. Putting pen to paper makes me proud, makes me arrogant, makes me kind, but most importantly, it makes me whole. Let’s just say it’s a precipice of a bad habit that serves to the benefit of not just the cultivator but also those around them. So I am going to keep it for as long as I can. Even during the days when I am not a writer. Even at my death.
So, about the poem I wrote on my 17th birthday. I can tell, from what I recall, it’s about how a woman should be all that she wishes to be. But honestly, when I read it now, I cringe so hard, my eyeballs jumped out of my socket and took a train to Reykjavik. I cringed and laughed at the poem not out of pity or abhorrence for the chick, who had a decent education in English language and literature, but couldn’t string a decent poem together. I cringed out of love for her. I cringed in peace, knowing if I hadn’t written(Or tried to write) what I had back then, I wouldn’t have had the balls today, to label myself a writer or add a Kerouac quote to my social media bio, as though I own his legacy(Oh, the nerve).
Today, as I eat my sad snicker bar on my bed, I feel satiated. I may not have come as far as I aimed to, (yet) But I look back at that poem and feel proud. I did something right. No shame, no regrets. That is why I can cringe confidently. I own that cringe. So I decided I’ll share it with the world.
Today, I am 27 years old, I’m still not sure if my poems sent my eyes packing to the artic pole but I write anyway and I don’t plan to stop. Here is a poem inspired by that sentiment. If this moves you, write a poem about it.
"In a world full of knives,
She was a sword. "
If I were you
I would cringe at this too.
At the ripe age of seventeen,
riddled with pomp
riddled with hubris
I tried my hand at poetry.
First time always stings.
a poet, a virgin,
I came as a poetic virgin.
I wrote because
mama never indulged.
Refused cable bills
unpaid library dues
two bedrooms
a kitchen
a bathroom with memories
of my morning shat and Hamam soap
made no difference,
to the distance
between my mind and home.
I wrote because,
my Sundays turned blue,
Mondays turned into Sundays
mornings lost colour
while the dusk spun,
like lever into my bone marrow.
I wrote because of
the acne on my shoulder,
my bad haircut and balled up face.
I had no honey to harm my heart,
no porn to make me cry.
I was cringe at its purest form.
It’s safe to say now,
that I craved no desire
but I caved into a need,
to write about
all that wouldn’t subside
within me.
throbbing mercury
lit flames in my c**t.
I needed to write,
for a sweet death
in summer pleasure.
If you are a cringe like me,
cring until you ache.
Cringe like the writers
who came before you
and the ones before them.
They made the world cringe
before making them
fall at feet full of needles
their eyes bloody, Temples,
now stand before tombstones.
Cringe is nothing but an infection.
don’t perish in fear.
Cringe is immunity,
a poem that writes itself one.
