Some would say May is romantic enough: the cherry blossoms, crisp grass and evenings bathing in sunlight. Morning strolls and afternoon ice cream. I say nothing is ever romantic enough. A little bit more romance is always welcome. Because when the sun sets and ice creams melt and flowers wither, something else remains. The most romantic thing of them all: art.

And what is more romantic than poetry? Maybe pottery, but that requires more materials (if I lived somewhere with a pottery studio, I would be a menace). Anyways, poetry! Such dedication in such fragile words. Words that build and destroy, caress and drown you. Almost seamlessly. No other form of art known to me displays the same amount of grace and subtle ache. Because all poetry is ache. It wouldn’t exist if there wasn’t any. Even if the ache comes from joy, such as laughing until your stomach aches.

What is more romantic than describing this mysterious ache in ways others can comprehend it. Only not consciously, not with their minds. But with their souls. With that little piece of the machinery that encourages them to cry, even if the words seem all tangled up together and the meaning gets lost somewhere in that dialectical web. And the other, just as minuscule piece, responding with goosebumps. Sometimes unexplicably so. The bodily ache reflecting the author’s ache. A mirror that doesn’t even bother to materialize.

Okay, that was about enough of my fangirling over the mere concept of poetry. Let us get to the real action: writing it. This entry is more of a cozy escape from the tips and tricks (and lists) of it all. A snug sneak peek into my mind. Don’t panic, it’s quite fun in there, I promise!

It all started in the spring (May, of course) of 2020. I am afraid I don’t really remember what caused my sudden decision to do this. It was during the early stages of the pandemic, when every source of inspiration was mixed up together in the Big Bowl of Eagerness. So I took a big scoop out of it and made a decision: each day of May, I would write a poem. It didn’t have to have a certain theme, rhythm or rhyme scheme. I thought this exercise would also be useful for my perfectionism tendencies.

Moreover, it would gently push me to reserve some time each day to be creative. Another aspect I have observed, it would also inspire me to take a closer look at mundane events, I would otherwise do automatically. For example, if I was eating a particularly scrumptious and warming soup and outside the rain was pouring. I would write about that exact feeling, trying to understand it. It would embolden me to sit with it and kind of have a silent conversation. The emotion would talk to me and I would write down all its whispers.

Some days, I would have no idea what to write about. No deep thoughts, no breakthroughs, no all-consuming feelings. So I would write about the series I was watching or the weather. I would squeeze the creativity out of a stone, if I needed to. At first, it hurt a bit. Not writing anything “impactful”, not re-writing and editing the piece until it sounded perfectly curated. Each day, I would drop a piece of me on a page, then close the notebook. At some point, it stopped being excruciatingly counter-intuitive and started being freeing. A release from the grip of trying to make everything flawless.

And that was the first year: 31 days of poetry. I initially write all my poems on my tablet. Afterwards, I transcribe them to blank pages. I must confess I haven’t been doing that for the last 2 years. I tried finding the right moment to write them on paper, but it just didn’t show itself to me in the way I would’ve wanted. So I simply didn’t do it, because making this process dreadful would defeat its very purpose.

After writing them all down, I bound the pages together with some ribbon and wrote May of Poetry 2020 on it. I also attached my favorite concept at the time: “Existence preceeds Essence”. Another whimsical detail, I wrote all the poems using one of those pens you have to dip in ink. I must say it was a little bit annoying and slow for me. I didn’t feel any of that comforting nostalgia I was expecting. In the end, I dropped the practice and stuck to black pens.

The pandemic ended and I returned to high school. Then I went to college. The month of poetry never stopped, it only evolved. It transformed into a lyrical journal of sorts. I wrote about my feelings regarding the graduation during senior year. About my first relationship and how it never felt as it was supposed to. I wrote about all my crushes and deceptions and deeply-rooted questions. I re-read them often and I am always in awe of how quickly intensity dissipates in our memory. I catch myself thinking “I don’t remember this event hurting this bad”. But it did, it truly did at the time.

It is a wonderful reminder. That you are allowed to feel deeply and honestly, to express yourself and let it heal. Indeed, you are also allowed to heal. And, after some years, try to understand that version of yourself and be proud of it for developing so beautifully. I was scared of leaving what I already knew, scared of not being loved anymore if I let this one person go, scared of losing time or feelings or potential. Now I look around myself and still find all those things, only in different forms.

Maybe everything does originate from physics, from energy. It can never be destroyed (nor created, but I won’t really focus on that right now). The love I was given was never lost, it transformed into my sister making me my favorite dinner, my mom talking to me on the phone when I was feeling lost, a ladybug landing on my finger when I was down. Love was that delicious first watermelon of the season when I came home confused and exhausted during exam season.

What I want to say is that the poems were never just poems. They were declarations, love letters to whatever instance made me feel alive that day. Mini time vaults, veiling various states of my soul and mind. Every year, another 31-page volume of my interiority. I would invite anyone who is interested to try this technique. It is one of those elixirs that heal and revive you without your even realizing it.

As a conclusion, I would like to end with two of my poems, one from 2022 (with the overall title being Panta rhei) and one from last year (How to be Close). It’s important to note that I have a peculiar habit, namely I end all my poems with the three mischievous dots