What Do You Right About? Isabella Regan’s Frequently

Asked Question: 

I have frequently been asked what I write about and consequently what does poetry entail? That’s a loaded question, not something I can answer in a second as most questions are. It’s not a “How are you?”, sometimes answered untruthfully, without a second thought. 

I think poetry is something I’ve always carried with me, I just didn’t know how to string the sentences and find the rhymes when I was younger. But there was one thing I did know, I knew that I saw the world differently than most people, finding the good in everything and perpetually looking for it, even when I wasn’t realizing it. As I got older, I learned that the world isn’t all sunshine and rainbows and my world did change but I didn’t let that realization change the way that I viewed it. The world hardens some and it softens others but I believe that no matter what the circumstance of someone’s life, there is beauty and there is love everywhere.

 

 The way the sun hits your dashboard in the morning, or your favorite meal, or “How was your day?” messages, it’s in everything. Love is found in the biggest and the smallest things. That is not to say that pain is not prevalent, believe me, I have had my fair share of it but I believe that there is beauty in pain as well. Maybe that’s twisted, a sick way of making pain a little more hopeful but even amidst the worst pain; there are still people that make us laugh. There is still good food, and a steaming cup of coffee. This is what I write about, how even when we feel as if nothing can get better, there are little signs that it will. When everything is going absolutely right, there are all the past versions of you (the ones who had everything going right and the ones who had everything going wrong) smiling at the prospect of your current life. 

 

I think I’ve always seen the world this way but I didn’t start expressing it through poetry until I was a junior in high school. Sitting in my English class, I heard the wise words of John Keating (the teacher in Dead Poets Society) and truly understood when he said: 

“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”. Throughout the years I have realized that to truly live I need to write these things down. 

My first poem was inspired by the way the sun shone through my kitchen window and was a story about a girl who thought the sky was beautiful even when it was gray and dismal. I think that I’ll always carry that poem with me, that it’ll continue to influence every poem that came after it. It is titled “A Beautiful Sort of Gray”. 

 

“A Beautiful Sort of Gray” 

“The sky is a beautiful sort of gray” she said with a sparkle in her eye. This was unexpected, since she was always sunshine. So I asked why, why she admired the sky even when it looked so bland. She smiled and brushed my face with the palm of her hand. She thought, for a moment, to make sure she knew, just what to do. She jumped up with a start and did a little twirl, reaching up to the sky that encompassed our world. “The possibilities” she said with a mischievous grin, and she saw my confusion, as unpredictable as the wind. So she sat back down and began to explain, her face lit up with everything but pain. “You never know”, she said “what the sky is going to do, it is more unpredictable than me and definitely you. Not even forecasters who dedicate their lives to understanding her life, have the power to say what next lies. It could rain or snow, it could be a great day for a firework show. Even though we don’t understand we go with the flow, because if we didn’t, where else would we go? Our life is like the sky, sometimes sunshine with beautiful rays of yellow. Sometimes a sunset where something must come to an end. And sometimes a beautiful sort of gray, which holds all the hope and excitement for the day.” 

I looked back at the sky to see what she meant and I found that the gray had only been lent for it was no longer gray but a deep shade of blue. “That was unexpected,” I said, completely amused. “Exactly,” she said, completely unbemused.

 

Almost three years later, it is crazy to look back on my first poem, and to think that the 17 year old sitting at her kitchen table had no idea how poetry would become a staple in her life.  

Life is intricate and it can change without a second thought, this art form can romanticize and theorize but more importantly, it can immortalize. Usually, I write long form spoken word poetry, but below is my experiment with something short, titled “The Knife, The Wound and the Band Aid”. 

 

 “The Knife, The Wound, and the Band Aid”

Love is the knife that punctures with such a velocity that you could have never seen it coming. 

Love is the wound who’s sting reminds you of whose hand was around the handle.

Love is the band aid, covering the work of the blade. 

Love is the healing. Love is the pain. 

Love is the knife, and the wound, and the band aid. 

 

With more longform poetry my works have ranged from the reality of losing a loved one, the intricacies of growing up, the complications of being young, the excitement of being young, love, heartbreak, and everything that comes with that. I saw an art piece on Pinterest, it was a beautifully painted record that posed the question “Does growing up just change your body, or also your soul?” so: 

 

“Does Growing Up Just Change Your Body or also Your Soul?” 

Does growing up just change your body or also your soul? The eternal question: what happens to us as we get old? Our shoulders begin to hunch. Is it because of the weight of the world or is that just a bunch of speculation? Do the trials and tribulations of everyday life pile on top of each other? 

The thing I like to remember is that everyone, no matter who they are, has gone through some sort of strife and every person you meet has somehow overcome it. So don’t become it. Don’t become the pain that you face even if that seems easier than letting it leave a trace around your soul. 

See, growing up does change your soul, 

it cracks it 

and beats it 

and heals it 

and feeds it. 

It gives it what it needs to grow. Although it hurts sometimes, it also shows it the beauty that life has to offer. Sometimes we buffer through this world on autopilot and while sometimes that is needed, everyone’s soul has been cracked at one point or another and that is a fact. 

But everyone also has the capacity to take in the sunshine and draw lines against the wall as they get taller, the body doesn’t just change because the body is the vessel and the world is cruel but it’s also beautiful. Maybe you agree, or maybe I’ve just said a mouthful. 

 

Grief is a tricky one, admittedly something prevalent for me currently and even though it is the worst pain I have ever faced, is it not beautiful to have loved someone so much that their loss has rocked me to my core? That I know I’ll never be the same as I was before? But amongst grief there is also beauty and there is hope and there is so much to be thankful for. 

 

“I Hope” 

I hope you never have to experience hardship. Have to feel the way that grief seeps into your bones, creating a home within you and pushing pain that no one should have to go through alone. 

 

I don’t, I have amazing people who make sure that I won’t face anything by myself. 

 

But I also know that grief changes people, that I will never truly be the person that I once was and it feels like looking at her through a peephole. 

There are moments when I see her, when I hear her through laughter that heals and even though it feels like nothing will be okay again I know that it will, somehow, someway there will come a day when the pain has dulled and the grief has been lulled and I am standing in the doorway looking at the person I used to be and I look a lot like her because she is still me.

 I am stronger, more weathered maybe but I went through pain that I could carry with the help of the right people. I will have my spark back eventually and until then, I will live perpetually in search of things that dull the pain while still letting myself feel it like the coldness of dancing in the rain. This is a part of life and if I don’t feel it and truly let go then I won’t be able to come back and I will always lack a part of myself. 

I lost a piece of myself when I lost a loved one that is true, that is a piece that I will never get back but there are parts I can renew. Eventually I will smile that way that I used to and if you feel this way, just know that you will too. 

 

There is beauty in everything, that is what I write about.