Frankenstein.

I was first introduced to poetry by Russell Simmons’ HBO series, Brave new Voices. In it, poets spilled their guts of the darkest atrocities, make amends, and grow, all with the power of prose. Granted, I had read the greats in high school: A mediocre understanding of Shakespeare, love in Auden, insanity in Plath. But this was different. These poets didn’t want to be merely read and forgotten, they weren’t looking for love, or even to hide behind prose. For these young poets, all that was important were those three redemptive minutes on stage wherein lyric was scalpel and pain made its exit with every gasp and clap. I saw one dark-skinned girl, pained by her mother’s own preference of lighter things, paint her skin in effervescence. And I witnessed another tear her own kidney from her stomach as offering for her lost and hateful brother, singing “We are kin.” And there I was, simply sitting, watching, and bathing in their enlightenment as each poet probed and prodded their scars as though a masochist ready to perform self-surgery.

And years since, I’ve spent doing the same. On my own operating table, I find myself lost in thought, hoping to make amends in whatever form. And I have - many times. But this is never ending. It’s perfection I’ve been chasing, like it’s somewhere deep in my flawed being. Call it naivety that keeps a person writing, but I’d rather pretend to be something special than just sit there and listen to someone else’s enlighten. With innocence, I write.