The challenge was to mask the feelings via words but still get them expressed. I was elated at the completion of each piece.
That's the aim. To get out words that make others nod and say, yes, you said to me how I wanted to say it to the world. That's why The Rainy Day by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow resonates with us so well. He perfectly captured the feeling of being down, and yet told us how every life has been there.
Now, back to writing.
To write the poems, I had to feel the lows, the angst, the sorrows, the pangs. The hardest part, I had thought, was to get into these feelings. And that means torturing oneself into the darkness. Feel the bleakness, the despair so that I understand.
Driving one into the darkness is not too difficult.
The fight comes when after sinking myself there, I have to pull out of this without-light place.
The daily grind is insufficient to play the positive role of lifting me out of this place I've intentionally sunk myself into.
How do I generate a large enough amount of happiness to be the crane that does this for me?
The more I seek that happiness, the more I find I have none to tap into. And this is when the argument within myself ends with the conclusion that I have none. Having none equates being in misery.
Peering into my soul for the darkness and finding that it exists in me is good for poem-writing but it isn't as simple as peering and then withdrawing from the bleakness.
And so, tortured poets then become so tortured that they send themselves off the edge. Such clarity. That said, putting the angst into words does have a cathartic effect. It cleanses the soul.
