That all changed when I entered eighth grade. Two big albums were dropped in the fall of 92: Core from Stone Temple Pilots and Dirt by Alice In Chains. When my math teacher offered the class permission to select background music, my friend Matt nominated Dirt. “It’s brand new, just came out.” Class lasted 40 minutes so we didn’t have time to play the whole record yet those first few tracks blew me away. Them Bones, Dam That River, Rain When I Die, Down in a Hole. Whatever worksheets we were supposed to be doing is lost to my memory. Mathematic exercises were instantly irrelevant. I spent the remainder of class staring absently at the numbers on the paper in front of me, devoting all of my attention to the driving drum beats, low bass growl, and distorted guitars. My ears clung to every lyric as the vocals alternated between Layne’s manic howl and Jerry’s moody harmonies.
Within the next year, nearly all of my school friends were starting their own bands, including Matt who brought his brand new Alice In Chains tape with him to math class. I was not a good singer and I couldn’t play any instruments but I still loved the world of creating music. Matt suggested I start writing songs. If they were good, his band might use them. I had never written a song before so I asked him for tips. His advice was to pick a random word then write about how that word made me feel. A couple nights later, while bored and sitting in the back row pew of a Sunday night church service, I used the blank space of an offering envelope to write my first song: Reach.
This was the birth of my writing journey. Those first few songs I wrote were nothing more than poetry with a repeating refrain. We lived in the Seattle suburbs, Kurt Cobain was still alive (at least for a few months longer), and I was all in with grunge. The songs I wrote never got used but I kept writing. The song structure became looser until I was writing straight poetry and (according to friends of mine) I was prolific. I continued this habit into my early twenties.
Fear, anger, and pain fueled my prose. A lot of my poetry also contained themes of unrequited love. Loss. Regret. It was the essence of all the stereotypical teenage angst you’d expect from the mid-90s.
Then I fell in love at 23 and discovered I couldn’t write a romantic poem even if my life depended on it. I’d never compose a decent love song. My poetic output decreased, eventually dwindling into nothing. By the time I was 24, I was no longer a poet.
My creative outlets shifted to essays. For twenty years I’ve maintained the storytelling tradition through both fiction and non-fiction. You can’t kill an inner poet though. In the wake of divorce, I penned a couple new poems - an act of pure catharsis. Grief and turmoil were always my greatest muses. Over the years after, I’d unearth my poetic mindset and compose something new. Then put it away and move on.
When the question of women choosing between a bear and a man recently started trending, my wife told me I should write a poem about it. I balked at the idea. I couldn’t do it - it’s been years since I’ve been a poet. I don’t have it in me anymore. Even in the middle of denying my wife’s suggestion, I already had a couple lines swimming in my cranium. Within 24 hours, I wrote a new poem: Choose the Bear.
In the days that followed, my inner poet re-emerged. Two more poems were scribed in quick succession. Annie recorded me reading Choose the Bear and you can find it on TikTok. The next poem, A Weird Combination I Know, will be shared soon but the other, Early Onset Alcoholism will remain hidden for another year. Annie is also pushing me to try out some open mic nights to share my poetry with a larger audience.
Through this process, I’m rediscovering something I knew to be true when I was a teenager: poetry has the power to divulge those feelings you can’t describe in simple conversation. Since my autistic brain has difficulty expressing my emotions, poetry is giving me a chance to process trauma and release all this grief I’ve never been able to grieve.
My wife and I have been dragged through hell the last couple years. Outside forces have been doing all they can to tear us apart but their efforts have only bound us closer together. Somehow it feels the poems I write have more power because I’m speaking for both of us.
This new creative muse is providing more than just catharsis, it’s also healing. Because there’s shit from my childhood I’ve still not processed. There’s shit from my first marriage that I’ve never talked about. And there’s shit flung at my wife and I that I’ve kept quiet.
Until now.
Annie and I have full custody of our younger two children. We only had to split custody with my older three kids. The first is 19 and lives independently. My next daughter is 17 and in the going-to-do-whatever-she-wants-to-do phase and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. My son is in jail and will be until he’s almost 18. This era of co-parenting is coming to an end.
For the last 11 years, I’ve tried as hard as I can to keep my mouth shut and take the high road. My ex-wife continues to violate our custody order and makes every attempt to stir up chaos in my life. Her reasons are unknown to me but my happiness seems to offend her. With these factors at play, my gloves are off. I have nothing to lose. We need peace and I’m finding it in poetry.
Ps: I’ve kept everything I wrote in the decade between the ages of 14 and 24. It’s all squirreled away in a box somewhere in the garage. Perhaps I’ll need to revive them and re-write them, transform them into something a little less angsty and juvenile.
