A dear friend of mine once allowed me to read some of her writing, and I was absolutely blown away. She called it “creative nonfiction,” a genre I had never experienced before, and it was written in second-person present, which was a unique choice. More than that, though, was the content.
This writing, poetry and short stories, taught me a great deal about her as a person. It outlined experiences I could never have imagined and emotions so deep that I felt compelled to feel them for myself.
I did not know how to respond. How do you tell someone that their work is beautiful, terrifying, surreal? I wrote a poem in kind, but I felt odd about sending it to her, as though writing it would make the experience somehow about me. Instead, I simply thanked her, and I knew even then that it was not enough.
So now, I have shared the poem in hopes that she will read it, in hopes that she will understand that writing it was never about me, but rather, the only way I know how to express just how her writing made me feel.
Thank you again, Friend. You know who you are.
And thank you for reading this bonus poem following National Poetry Month. The project is now complete! I am so happy to have shared this with you.
Happy reading,
Sibyl