Dedicated to Pablo Neruda
You speak of your troubled beginnings
as if your life forged in iron
made you the mess you’ve become,
but I don’t see that in your mirror—
or the powerfully passionate
poems you’ve created
on the knees of trauma.
Dear one,
you are no different from any other poet
before or after you
whose rocky beginnings
drove them to our shared page—
like me, locked in my childhood closet
pouring out painful words
of inquiry about grandma’s suicide—
questions and whys of ingesting
bottles of sleeping pills
bringing her to her end in my arms.
how could this not leave
a scaffolding scar on my secret self
the one that oozes passion,
loves intimacy and adores the poet
who you are?
Diana Raab, MFA, PhD, is a memoirist, poet, blogger, and award-winning author of ten books and 1000 articles/poems. She blogs for Psychology Today, Psych Central, Thrive Global and many others. She frequently speaks on writing for healing transformation. Visit:dianaraab.com.
