During my high school career I day-dreamed a lot, and remember very little other than the moments of regret. Once I tried to impress a guy by belting out that I got the latest “Deanna Carter” CD for Christmas. I’d hoped my attempt would have him realize that I too liked country music and therefore we would have a powerful connection, somehow. Unfortunately, it was ill timed and his 3 friends turned to stare at me with bewilderment. He was 3 years my senior, and not only did I blow my chances with him, but I set myself up for recurrent embarrassment every time I made eye contact with anyone from the class of ‘97. He was my “boyfriend” for 2 weeks during the prior summer, so my time had already come and gone anyway.
Regardless of my social status, it was clear during those years that I became a hopeless romantic. A pivotal moment in my younger life was during my Creative Writing class. My teacher, her face I don’t remember, had limbs like a Tim Burton character and smelled of vodka, moth balls, and cats. She was, however, encouraging of my writing abilities which had a great impact on me in comparison to my English teacher who once told me my poem of a ship-at-sea was worthless. I really couldn’t see how even the football players in the class wrote something better than me, but he also didn’t have the image of them crushing beer cans on their foreheads from the weekend prior. I decided at that point that I wasn’t going to try to do well in that class. I think I skipped it for most of that semester.
During my favorite Creative Writing class I came across a poet during a specific assignment. At that time I didn’t know it would alter the way I viewed writing. The authors name was Rod McKuen, and the first book I picked up was titled Stanyan Streets and Other Sorrows. His words spoke directly to my romanticism married with my teenage hopelessness. Oh the hardships of a teenager!
I feel safe, powerful, and untouchable in the world of language and the assembling of vocabulary. Credit is due to the poetaster who conveyed writing is whatever you want to make it. I was unleashed!
Every once in a while I’ll happen upon a poem of Rod McKuen, and sometimes I’ll read my own and find a direct influence from the man who’d woo me from the pages of his works. While perusing through a few of my writings from this last year I came across several that I will share with you, but first a taste from the poems of a man I'd learned of in high school:
Comfort
If we could do it
all again
motorbike
through Roman cities
in the rain
watch the cats chase lizards
in the forum
and drink bad wine
from mouth to mouth
I probably would try
to love you harder than I did
I probably would smile a smile
much better than the ones
you knew
for I was just rehearsing then
imagining what easily might happen
in years to come.
It is not just you I love
(or even Roman rain)
or all the time you rattled
on my window
after twelve o'clock.
I love the smell of rooms-
where you have been
the foreign touch
of things I never knew
until you came along.
I even love your enemies
because they drive you
to my arms
for comfort.
Some of my recent:
The Awaited Journey
Where will I follow you too?
Into tomorrow and all through the day
up the mountain and during the belay.
I've got a world picked out for you.
Let's head down roads leading to nights
filled with fires
and daylight naps
in fields filled with wild grass
and noisy bugs
where ponds lay still and streams trickle over hillsides.
I'm ok with dirty finger nails and unwashed jeans
as long as we're sorrounded by mountains
and filled with the air they supply.
I'm a mountain girl, mountain boy.
And I'm ready to trek the world 100 times over.
B Street
I’ve vanished from my body
I’m lost in your eyes
and imagine where they’ve ventured too in your lifetime.
Your mouth distracts me from the words you’re saying
I can’t hear you.
What woman hasn’t been mesmerized by you?
I can’t form a thought that doesn’t have to do with touching you
Withholding myself seems pointless
the resistance slowly weakens me.
Your skin glows as warm as Bora Bora beaches
and I’m certain your cheek bones would cradle perfectly in the cup of my hands.
The canvas that presents
your lips, nose, and eyes
beckons me to explore it
with all of my being.
The temperature around my heart has slowly risen
and I’m certain you can tell something is up
by the way I have to intently focus on your eyes
still I can’t hear a word you're saying.
I want to be close to you
with no intention
but to feel you’re very existence next to me.
What have you been saying?
What have I been saying?
Have I said anything?
Do you know what you’ve been saying?
Are we both experiencing this together?
Wow, your smile.
You’d turn my world upside down
if you’d intended one only for me.
There’s no place I wouldn’t want to go with you.
This experience has my thoughts running in different directions
I'm as light and unpredictable as the air surrounding
after this heavy rain.
I can feel what it would be like
for my lips to graze near yours
and I’m in a whirlwind.
My mouth has gone dry
I lick my lips
I lick them again.
I bite them as they’re swelling.
Who are you that you do this to me?
What spell is this?
I never want to walk away from you
and though I know we won't kiss goodbye
I’d love to look at you
for
a
few
more
moments.
I now understand the endearment "honey."
You are honey to my eyes and lips.
I’m salivating at the possibility of tasting you one day.
For now, that's all. Enjoy the words and go love on someone who gives you the permission to graze their lips with yours.
Xox,
Sarah
I've made it a point to seek out material that inspires me and lifts my Spirit. In turn I've noticed an ease with being myself, and I engage in conversation much easier when I'm listening to others' greatness. 
