POEM FOR IMALRIGHT
Dear Imalright
I discovered your poetry and LOVED all of it. I was struck by lots of what you wrote and it inspired to write this to you. I promise you I mean every word of it.
I read your poems:
Unexceptional
Unbeautiful
Anxiety at 3AM
Two sad teenagers
Relapse
Fifteen
Starving artist
2014
Nothing special
Rough Edges & a dorky face
Under eyes
I adored them and spent the better part of a full day, hours and hours combing through the verses, dissecting the poems, analyzing the words and fully appreciating your incredible work. I picked out my very favorite phrases or yours that I found particularly powerful and moving and responded to these lines. I wanted to start a challenge. (In fact I posted this challenge as a poem, you can find it on my page).
I thought it might be nice to do like a secret santa thingy on hellopoetry only not secret and not santa… what I mean is, find a random stranger you literally have never met and do NOT know at all whose poetry you like and spend actual time genuinely reading their work, picking out your favorite lines and responding to them, pondering them, etc. Write something positive to them and post it as a poem with their name in the title. The “DEAR BLANK” challenge only you put their name instead of “blank”. I think we could all use a little recognition that we exist and are worth something since everyone seems a little depressed on here (including myself) which is fine, it’s a great outlet but it would be nice for people to just spontaneously find that a random stranger spent time in their life just to recognize you and care about your poetry. To write a kind poem/letter to them responding to lines in their poetry. I just thought that you seemed like a wonderful poet and a wonderful person based on your poetry so I chose you, Imalright. So here it is:
Your head whispers these words that crawled onto the page:
We're the kind of people that fade into the background
that people forget are in the room.
-Imalright
I won’t say something that the rest of society seems to think fixes everything. I won’t tell you the typical: you are important to everyone, you are not just a faded part of the background, people do notice you etc. because those are empty words everyone uses and they people who are always pretty in the spotlight are always the ones to say it, so what do they really know about the background, forgotten, white-noise people like us?
I will tell you, instead, I know it hurts like hell to be forgotten. For your existence to go unnoticed. I know being a part of the background is never anyone’s first choice. I am a backdrop-dweller myself. I am the unnoticed girl who blends in with the shadows. There is nothing wrong with that.
Never forget that the starry night sky is a background too. You can still be wonderful without being the center of attention. You can still be wonderful even if you are a part of the background. I want you to know, I noticed your poetry. I noticed you, and your name, and your wonderful talent and I have spent my time dissection every poem you have posted because every single one of them, is a different shade of amazing. We are all backgrounds in someways but what we choose as our phone screen backgrounds tend to be pictures of what we love the best. Pictures of beautiful things. There is nothing unbeautiful about the background. So from one forgotten soul in a room to another, I your poetry was just another account in millions like the stars but you are one of the loveliest sections of this world’s background I have ever seen. Keep that in mind.
I just wish that I was one of those beautiful things.
-Imalright
Once again, I won’t use a society phrase like: Everyone is special and beautiful in their own ways!! Because people don’t seem to get that no matter what they say, it doesn’t even matter if it is true, but if you tell someone who thinks they are not one of those beautiful things that they are beautiful They. Do. Not. Believe. You. It just doesn’t matter, it won’t change their mind, it doesn’t help and it doesn’t fix it. It just makes them feel like you are lying to them and then they feel vain and self-conscious about admitting to you that they don’t feel beautiful etc. etc. I’ve been there so I know.
So I won’t tell you that. But I will tell you a couple facts instead.
It is a fact, that there is ugly inside of every single person.
It is also a fact, that there is beauty inside every single person.
Because beauty is NOT a definable concept. It is different to every person depending what kind of lens they look through and let me tell you, physical beauty is artificial and even though I wish I could be physically attractive in my own eyes, I have come to accept and I hope you have too or will as well, that a deeper beauty than that is inner beauty. What you keep in the cracks and crevices you made yourself in your soul. I think you are beautiful. I the pages you’ve written on soaked with ink made out of your inner self is magnificent. Your way with words and your flow of thoughts, the way you look at life through an indigo-tinted-one-way-glass-lens, it is all a whispering sort of beauty. Like the soft ringing sound of raindrops skimming the window pane on a grey sky, storm cloudy day. That same sort of delicate loveliness. I think you are a very unique and exquisite color of beautiful unlike any other poet I’ve ever seen. I don’t know you, you don’t know me, we can’t label ourselves friends since I have never spoken to you, but friends are basically socially required to tell you that you are beautiful whereas strangers are bound by no such obligation, yet still I tell you, I find you a person with a beautiful soul. I have only ever seen your poetry, but that is enough for me to know you are a beautiful person. After all, poetry is really where our souls spill what they are truly composed of. If I were to judge your beauty by your face and actions, all those are altered by circumstances beyond our control, society standards and pressure etc. What you do does not define you. Your soul does, however. You are beautiful to me.
I JUST WANT TO BE LOVED I JUST WANTS THINGS TO BE OKAY
-Imalright
A truthful scream of the heart that many have felt. It’s funny that we all have this same base desire that tends to reveal itself more and more the later at night it gets, and yet we all still suffer the feeling of being unloved and unokay alone and silently. I wish I could reach out and fix you because the pain of others that is out of my reach always pains me more than any kind of physical agony I could ever endure. I can’t fix you though, so instead I offer you the only thing I can, I am with you. As a friend, just another soul on the earth who has felt this feeling you express in this line. I reach out with the hands of my spirit and for your spirit. Maybe if you know that I too have felt unloved and unokay you can find comfort and strength in that. Because no matter what kind of darkness you face, literal or internal, I find being united with someone empathetic to you who knows how you feel makes it just a little less scary even if it is just a sliver of hope for even just a second. It is something and the idea of “hereness’ you know, like being “here” for you, being “with” you in that emotion is all I can offer and I just want you to know, I love everyone and everything until I am given a good reason not to. So in a way, even if not on a personal level (because I do not know you, so I can’t love you on a personal level the way a sister loves a sister or a best friend loves a best friend) just generally, you are loved by me, because I love your poetry and I love all things that haven’t given me reason not to. And do you know what? Even though it hurts and it is unfair, everyone has to be unokay for a little while. I have been too. Maybe you were unokay for longer than what could possibly be near just or humane or reasonable but you were strong enough to pull through. I applaud you for this and want you to know your strength in powering through your unokayness has been recognized and admired. By me. Because the warriors are the ones up at 3AM having anxiety attacks but never let it show and you are a warrior. I am proud to call you a fellow poet.
but being sad and lonely is worse than being sad.
-Imalright
I know what you mean by this line. It is sculpted so beautifully though. The words in the phrase are just so raw and honest. Not over romanticized, just plain relatable great poetry in its true form as it should be. Wonderful. I hope you have found refuge from loneliness or will find refuge from it soon in finding someone else’s heart to call your own and in your heart belonging to someone else.
A new scar for that comment that boy said.
A new scar for that friend that betrayed you.
A new scar for every word you swallow.
-Imalright
That boy has scars of his own and he thought it would make them fade if he cause you to have scars too. ***** him. The betrayal of a friend is a special kind of pain like being stabbed with a knife you made yourself. A pain I know too well and wish no one else knew. Let the scars heal and do not swallow words. You will choke pretty soon if you don’t. Keep in mind that you are worth more than scars. I think you are worth more than scars.
You don't know how bad things are.
-Imalright
First off, I love this line. Just so simple and yet so relatable. There is some beauty to that. Sort of like thorns on a rose stem. Although they can be piercing and ugly there is magnificence that goes along with it. To be 15 and not know how bad things are, you have the rest of your life to obsess over the bad things and how awful things really are. You have the rest of your earthly existence to be broken, so like a child’s smile, at least you had that one moment in your life when things weren’t shattered as far as you knew.
With nowhere to go but everywhere
-Imalright
What an extraordinary thought. Such a liberating idea. You have really inspired me with this one single phrase. Keep in mind, you can be so inspiring to people who don’t even know you (like me) just with your words. You really make such a difference in this world. I have decided after reading this line, I’m going to try and let a little bit of that philosophy into my life. Nowhere to go but anywhere.
And that hope is going to make me stop doing this to myself.
-Imalright
Well, I really hope so too. I hoped for hope to save me for way too long. Eventually you gotta find it in yourself because this world is a little short on Hope, its main export being Despair. Just know you are not alone in this. I wish Hope was something you could wrap and mail it to someone who needs it but I can’t hand you Hope. I cannot offer it to you physically but if it helps at all, if it creates Hope for you, I want you to know that I personally, desperately from the bottom of my heart hope to God, genuinely thinking of you individually as a person that you have healed or are healing or will heal through Hope. If that helps. I have been crumbling, but somehow, after a hell of a lot of anguish, I found Hope. You can too. If it doesn’t help then I offer you my hand spiritually and metaphorically. Stay hopeful, because in this world, that is all we have.
i'm nothing special
im not beautiful
i'm not gifted
-Imalright
I know I can’t change your mind the same way no one can change mine when it comes to how self-image and esteem, but I just wanted to tell you even if you don’t believe me, in my eyes and in my opinion, not saying this to be fake or just being nice. If it weren’t true I just wouldn’t bring it up or say anything about it but you are VERY special. …okay that doesn’t sound good that sounds like the kind of special people put in quotations like: oh, she’s um… you know, “special” alright…
What I meant was, you are special because your poetry has made a difference in my life. You insightful view into life, your precious unprecedented perspective on the world and how you perceive it is very special. I have already explained why I think you are beautiful internally and keep in mind there is no such thing as one type of physical beauty. It is all about opinion and to some person or some people out there, you ARE physically perfect. To them, your physical traits are their definition of beauty because beauty doesn’t have a size, a color or a shape. That is the beautiful thing about beauty. And you are gifted at poetry, that’s for **** sure. Your poems are absolutely toxically flawless I adore them and I really, really mean that. Your writing is close to my heart. That may come across rather creepy sorry about that haha :P but you need to know that you are gifted when it comes to beautiful words.
No one will make me believe that all of my flaws aren't wonderful.
-Imalright
Such a sensational thought and resolve. I really and truly admire and acknowledge your indescribable strength I wish I could achieve to not only accept but embrace your flaws. You are such a strong person and I want to thank you for being such an inspiration to me and the rest of the world, doing that and finding that truth within yourself that flaws are wonderful things.
wondering why i had shattered myself in the process of picking up someone else's pieces
-Imalright
Okay, before I say anything else… omfg wow holy mother of waffles. (That is not a very common expression but I am so struck by the priceless incredibleness of this line I can’t think straight. Also, waffles are good.) This is amazing… how do you come up with stuff like this???!! The imagery, the metaphor, the power of the phrase embedded in the words just… wow. Spectacular. God, I just really, REALLY hope with every ounce of my soul you find a way to repair yourself or someone to repair you because to lose yourself, saving someone else who was broken is so heroically tragic it breaks my heart because you are such a beautiful person.
Dear Imalright
I offer you Poet’s Love.
One poet to another.
I admire your work and your work is made out of little parts of you.
I admire you and your strength, your writing abilities and your outlook on life.
Never ever change.
I hope you find Hope.
Message me anytime should you need anything.
And I want to thank you for being such a strong inspiration to the race of people we call: Poets.
Love,
Ember Evanescent.
DEAR BLANK CHALLENGE