on poetry & pastel skies

The other day I was going through this magazine full of poems and I suddenly felt the urge to write my own poetry. So I cracked open my (as of then) empty composition notebook and started writing. It felt so good... I hadn't written in so long but the words, even the bad and ugly ones, flowed so evenly; it was like releasing my soul, if that's not too cliche.

So I sat there on my front porch. It was like ninety degrees but it didn't feel bad. It felt distinctly Southern to be sitting on my front porch with a ice-cold glass in my hand, watching my neighbors walk by with their dogs or their babies in strollers. Apparently up North they don't have quite as many porches as we do...Where do they sit with their notebooks and just write? :P If I'm being honest, 'just writing' isn't 'just' writing. To me, at least, writing is about 10% actual writing, 10% crossing things out, and 80% just sitting there waiting for the right words to come.

Sometimes they came naturally and other times they were forced and awkward. But that did not matter. As long as I was writing, I was good. My poems aren't the best; they aren't much of anything. Just some words scrawled on a sheet of paper with a pen that says 'Canada' on it. But writers, you will know what I mean when I say that the feeling of getting it out--of releasing your thoughts and turning them into words--conquers any worries of imperfection.

At least, that's how it is for me.

pink lemonade sunset

I sit and I search for something meaningful to say
something poetic to write
as I watch the sun sink beneath the canopy of trees.
The sunset tonight isn't anything spectacular,
just the subtle pink-orange hues of the sky
as the sun races to the other end of the globe.
I admire it, tasting the soft pastels of the clouds,
those wispy veils that turn cartwheels on the horizon.
Like cotton candy, I marvel,
as the world turns darker around me.
Like pink lemonade.

-Kendall