Seasons of the Poet

I have saved every piece of poetry that I have written since I was fourteen years old,
I've filled notebooks and scraps of paper with my life experiences,
Confessing all my sins in perfectly timed stanzas,
Wrapping up my indiscretions and heartaches in beautiful words,

Hoping someday that someone will find them as powerful as I did,
Yet day after day I stare at these pages that no one will read- but me,

I found myself wanting to burn every work of poetry that I had written,
I got sick of looking at the last eleven years of my life as a stack of paper,
Every time I had cried or loved was on those pages,
All the crushed hopes and realized dreams were entombed there on my office bookshelf,

I still find myself hoping that someone will read these poems and seek more,
Yet day after day I let my words remain on a shelf,

Today I packed away all of the poetry that I had written before now,
I told myself that everything previous felt like a different lifetime,
And now I have something that I didn't have before-
Experience.


By: Alyssa