You Young Wild Thing

Write What Thou Ought Know

A poet is cursed to always write what they know
Some tales form in places
With mishaps and adventures
The poet never could relate to
But alas by the end
The poet sits and stares at their words
That took shape
That formed
Into themself

This curse is true for me
No matter the convoluted stream of words
No matter the day and age
It's always what I know

I realized this with love
There was a girl
Blonde hair, blue eyes
That my heart couldn't get rid of
That I loved more than life itself

Then she set sail
And moved away
Despite this my heart made distant pleas
That maybe someday she'll come back
She'll raise her sail and go eastward
She'll face the seven seas
And slay the giant that lays in her path
Just to see me

As the days pass
And my heart withered away
In its place remained reality
She was never going to come back
With nothing left to do
I returned to what I knew
Pen and paper
Words formed and my pain relinquished
It seemed to dissipate
Enough to move on that is

But when the day came
For me to pick up my pen
And write a poem
That to its core detailed love
Slung over its shoulder
The weight of it all too consuming
When that day arrived
And my pen took its place
I found myself writing a familiar tail
About a familiar person
I wrote about her

The first poem that I hadn't wrote about her
Was indeed about her
Because I wrote about love
And to me, she is love
All consuming, all too much, slung over my shoulder, written into my heart
She is my love
She is everything

So of course the first poem I wrote
That I hadn't set sail and crossed the seven seas
To sow her heart into
That instead I wrote about something inconsequential
Had been about her
How could it not?
For a poet will always write what they know.

I know what love is
Love is the girl I fell in love with
Blonde hair, blue eyes
In writing about love
She would be stitched to the seam of the paper
Her soul anchored to each word
She is love
Inevitably that poem was about her
It always was
For a poet will always write what she knows.