Moss and Mushrooms

I've built you a home in my heart

A collection about poetry/writing/the creative process. Lots about my personal process and writing experience along with guidance for anyone who wants to start writing poetry.

The way you write
You contradict yourself in almost every line, each poem holding a different truth, often realities one would never imagine could coexist, but you have always found that they do.
You write about the same memories and moments over and over again. You capture the same story from every person in the room. In each telling of the story you find yourself thinking of it a little bit differently than you did before.
You save every poem, each chapter and thoughtless sentence a part of a bigger story. Maybe this one is bad and maybe this is another senseless ramble but in its hands is a moment worth remembering.
You write honestly, in the pages of your books lives a life that has been everything it could have been. In between the covers there are stories of genuine happiness and an empty sort of sorrow. You do not have to hide behind your words.
The books you write have held you and you to feel the sunshine on your skin. They have helped you pull yourself out of the darkness, even when it felt like it was swallowing you.
Your writing has helped you see what you really are. It has given you a place to be whatever you may be in that moment. You are able to look in the mirror and see every way you have grown and every bruise that has remained.
It has been a place to document your every day. It is a photo album of the beautiful sunsets and sickening nights. It holds every moment you have lived.
You write down your ideas in a document that tells the story for you. You write at all hours but mostly late into the night.
You use the same metaphors to tell the same stories. Your titles are often made up of the same words. You say you when you mean I.
You feel that writing has a home in your heart and a bedroom in your soul.

Writing advice
Write what you really mean, if you don't mean it the story is not worth telling.
Write about everything, write about the nights you have spent aching, write about the days when you realize you have found what you have always been looking for.
Do not be afraid to contradict yourself, do not be afraid to tell the same story in seven different ways.
Save every idea. Hold onto every notebook of poetry. It is all a part of something bigger.
Poetry is everywhere, poetry is in music, poetry is in bleeding and raised scars, poetry is in Sundays and moments of genuine laughter.
Know that it is better to write something poorly than it is to write nothing at all. Maybe the metaphor is ugly, maybe you are rambling thoughtlessly, and maybe it is all something worth saving.
Find new ways to write, find different ways to tell the story, do not be afraid to try something new.
Be proud of being a writer, hold pride for the stories you tell.
Write endlessly, write late at night, write when you wake up in the morning, write when you are riding in the car, write when everything falls apart, write when things make sense.
Know that you are a writer even when no one has read the story. Know that your art is not defined by how many people have seen it.
Develop your own style, find what makes your writing your writing, intricately design your creation.
Enjoy your writing, romanticize the practice, listen to beautiful songs, write in coffee shops, see yourself as a writer before anything else.

As it is
Write about the things that keep your heart beating, write about what pushes you into sleepless nights.
Write a rambling letter to the moments that broke you, write a poem about the milk and honey that filled you with hope.
Find the colors to paint your grand painting, find the words that capture the moment into something you can hold in your hands.
Write about the stories that replay in your mind endlessly, write about the things that you tell yourself.
Write about your day, write things that mean everything to you, write things that mean nothing and go nowhere.
Capture the truth as it folds in on itself. Capture the truth when it leaves you aching. Capture the truth when it brings a yellow light into your chest.
If you are going to write in any fashion, write honestly.

Home
The colors of spring and winter.
I'm fifteen years old and I don't know who I am. I don't know what I believe or what I want to be. I'll pick apart the truth until I find something that makes sense. I am more myself than I have ever been. I am aching in a way I have not ached before. I'll try on every person I could be, I'll pretend until I don't have to anymore. This will be the first thing I will finish, a true point of pride because I know something about myself I didn't know before. I will search for the truth but I will only let it into my house of a mind if it is easy to live with. I am empty and directionless. I feel a warmth coming from within me.
Letters from sixteen.
I cannot stop the truth from being what it is, and believe me it is ugly. I have stories of awful moments written in markers on my walls. None of this makes sense, I know that. I will write endlessly because this is the only thing that makes sense right now. I am an addict and I know that now, I have shown myself things I had never known before. I cannot stop thinking of what he did to me. I am bleeding. I think I am not going to live to see through this. Maybe I will live to see the end.
Sunday in bloom,
I want to change but I will not. A second bottom. I am not the man I thought I was. This is going to be the end of me. This is going to be the thing that defines me. I tried and I failed. What is left? I have pushed all the good out of my life. I am alone with no one else to blame. I will find my way to the end, believe me.
Sincerely October.
For the first time in my life I feel like I can breathe. I am still aching but I think I will survive this. I will finish this book knowing each page written sober. I will make peace with these things that seemed so unbearable. He hurt me but he's not here anymore. There's more to write about, there's more than pain and addiction and I believe that. In each empty poem about a soreness from which I am yet to free myself, still, I believe that I stand a chance at being someone I want to be.
Moss and mushrooms.
I will write honestly because I am not quite sure what else I could do. I think I can be more than my pain. I am growing towards the sun. I will write the same stories I always have along with moments I deemed myself incapable of. I will write about Sunday mornings and realizing that the worst is over. Things make a little bit more sense every day.