First Steps #WATTYS2016

A Letter

Quick note: This poem is not from my own perspective.

If I was to write a letter to myself,

Perhaps I would use poison-laced ink,

Bleed the pen dry onto the paper,

Gripping it tightly, etching the words into my mind,

Staining any blank spots dark.

I wouldn't always have chosen this,

There may have been times when I would send myself a postcard

And although now I wish I were here, no picture of scenery is going to do that.

I am not; there are times when I am not.

No mail service can handle my request,

A self-addressed letter bomb,

Splattering the ink onto the page,

Not caring that it's unreadable because it's a letter to myself –

I already know what it says.

My mind is constantly telling me to write a letter,

Yet never reading the ones I write,

Not yet.

Maybe one day I will open the letters through my door,

To open them would be to resolve this with others,

But for now they stay,

Imitating my mouth whenever I want to express myself and am told not to,

Whenever my ideas aren't good enough or complex enough for others to be satisfied,

The letters remain sealed.

If I was to write a letter to myself,

Perhaps I would smudge the ink with rainwater before posting,

So that the me that opens them sees the me who wrote them,

Clouds hanging in the sky,

Threatening to fall down at any given moment

And so I write.

I let the ink escape me into the paper,

Taking with it this version of me,

Why do you think I seal the letters so tightly?

Why are you confused that I never open them?

I'm a stick of TNT lit at both ends with the fire that licks the envelopes sealed every night.

I wasn't always like this,

I remember times when I would have chosen to draw a picture,

An innocent cartoon where the colour red is used only for a dress

And the colour black only for the smile on my face,

But now I write letters,

Never to be opened, lest they spark an interest to read too many.

If I was to write a letter to myself,

I may just seal the pieces of my broken pencils

And hope that they join back up in the envelope,

So that one day, if I open it,

I can draw again.