how do you write your poetry?

helen Poems

I used to have a book, books, that I scribbled in furiously at work, at traffic lights in the morning and at night after I went to bed, I'd get up again and bled upon a page I'd be halfway through a shower and I'd rush through top and toe just to drip upon the page so the feelings would not go away now I write mine freehand, in the dark after my world has gone to sleep I take another drink and become part of all of me I used to think carefully about each syllable, each carefully constructed line but there is no time, no time left for me to care what falls from my brain I read everyday, every word said I collect emotions of others wounds and store them as prizes in my head I love everyone you do, or, did and I hate them for how they treated you or, I did, until you forgave them or, killed them in memory or, flogged yourself stupid for their mistakes I get it, you write what I've lived I draw on memories that aren't mine Emotions I've never allowed to cut deep Promises that were left unspoken and crossroads where we would never meet Hence the darkness needed to write because I'm afraid of the shadows that seem to hide in the light In the dark I can pretend to be alone Just my drink, and my dog which occasionally likes to sit on me and I can pretend I mean something to just anyone, kissing emotional lips with a passion of memories I don't seem to own