Poetry used to fall out of me

A long time I thought it was like a rushing river 

Or  like falling pedals on a cherry tree 

Words would spill out and I thought 

Boy

Aren’t I good 

to have the word to say

What others won’t

When my life began to reflect my words I realized that the stuff spewing from my mouth wasn’t a lush spring of love and hope but rather a sewage of anger and disappointment

I stopped writing thinking maybe the power in my words was more than I imagined

Like I had any control

Can you imagine being that naive?

When things continued to fall apart, I ran out of words to give to the pain I was feeling

And the poetry stopped

The sewage didn’t pour out of me anymore

instead

It built up inside

But at least I wasn’t a cause for pollution anymore.

When I looked to scripture I found that the words were already written

There is

Quite literally

Nothing new under the sun

(Ecclesiastes 1:9)

There was no new circumstance that could attribute 

To my hopeless groaning before the Lord (psalms 5-13)

Nothing that He hasn’t already spoken

Already promised

And already finished

(John 19:30)

Poetry used to fall out of me like trash filling up your pockets

Like your car after trips of fast food when you don’t want to throw it out your window, but it isn’t worth stopping by a dump

“At least I’m not littering”

Until you look around and recognize the trash you are covered in

In the beginning was the Word

And what a gift it is to not feel the pressure of coming up with it myself anymore