My healing journey through poetry

I first started writing poems in Year 8. They were horrendous. They had a traditional rhyme scheme ad were most about boys I was in love with or girls that I hated. Looking back now, it's rather funny, but thankfully I don't have any left as evidence of my pathetic teenage woes.

In Year 10, I was going through a rough patch emotionally and started using poetry as a means to express my troubled thoughts. I put down the pen for a long while and only took up writing poems again when I started going through a rough patch in a previous relationship. Once that was over, I started throwing myself, almost obsessively, into work and no longer "had time" for creativity, despite the fact that that was an integral part of my job.

For years, I forgot about poetry. Instead, I started to experiment with other creative ventures such as blogging, photography and YouTube. For my 30th birthday, I received "The Apricot Memiors", book of poetry by friend Tess Guinery. I had been inspired by her work and effortless style and aesthetic for years and immediately became obsessed with her work. Her poems spoke of love, adventure and enjoying the simple things.The message really resonated with me. The first night of reading her book, I couldn't sleep. Words were swirling around my head- poems. I frantically wrote them down.

Since then, poetry has been outpouring from me, exposing a myriad of thoughts and feelings- some superficial, but many of them intimate and revealing the desires of my heart.

Then I took a leap of faith and did something I normally wouldn't do. I published them on Instagram. Once a week, I've been putting out a new poem and I'm so thankful I get to share my writing with people. I hope that it is as inspiring, interesting or moving to others as much as it is to me.

Carly xx

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