I’ve written how for a long time, years in fact, I never saw myself as a poet. I wrote in notebooks, filling them eventually, about my life. Some would see these as the ramblings of a madwoman in the dead of the night. Perhaps that’s exactly what they are, but for me each poem I’ve written covered something troublesome for me.

I came from a childhood where often the case was I simply couldn’t express myself to those I needed to. This has left me with a terrible trait as an adult to suppress many feelings I have on various topics. I’m a noted, among my closest of family and friends, to be very honest, but at the same time things that truly bother me I will push down. These things never every fully stay pushed down in my depths, they find life in notebooks whether on a computer or a physical notebook.

Poetry is subjective. I walk through my days knowing this and have even written how I wouldn’t ever want to fully explain my poems allowing a reader to take them in subjectively. This is art for me. What one would take away will usually be different than why I even wrote the piece.

The topics I cover come out in a style that’s considered Gothic or darker in nature. This categorizes my work into ‘dark poetry’, but what even is dark poetry? It certainly isn’t for everyone and can at times even trigger the sensitive, but I’m not alone in seeing even in the darkest of poetry a soul trying to heal a wound.

Dark poetry as defined best, in my opinion, in an answer to the question ‘What is dark poetry?’ on the website Quora. If you’ve gone and read it, doesn’t that seem to fit most of my own work? Does to me. Dark Poetry.org explained in their piece called What Is Dark Poetry? Writing for most, including myself, is therapy. As explained by Positive Psychology’s article Writing Therapy: Using A Pen and Paper to Enhance Personal Growth it can be helpful in healing and maintaining a healthy emotional self and growth.

I could fill an entire post with links explaining what dark poetry is, citing websites and users that are talking about it, but I won’t. I wanted to do this article to explain. I get comments time to time asking me about my poetry, why is it so dark, or even what is mentally wrong with me for this to be deemed as appropriate.

My poetry isn’t for everyone, honestly. I know this. The language in which I use to express myself isn’t for everyone. I recently explained that I wanted to take this challenge to encourage myself and push myself, but I don’t always share my poetry. Poetic licensing and poetic expression doesn’t always mean the person is mentally unstable or unhealthy, yes I have some issues, but it’s not because of my poetry.

My poetry is healing for me. I at times want to share because I know I am not alone. I know my work has the potential to finding someone, somewhere, that it could help who may not be able to find the right words to describe something going in their life. This reflects back to my not explaining my pieces in-depth.

Did this help you understand? Have a question for me? Let’s have a conversation about it.