Fevered Mind

Painfully, I know that I have not been posting as much as I used to on this blog. What began as an outlet for my creativity, as well as a way to inspire myself to write, has become a source of regret for me as days, and sometimes weeks, pass without me returning to it. The main source of this distance is the fact that I, at the beginning of the year, started a new job which has demanded far more of my time and focus than I originally anticipated. That, coupled with an hour drive there and back, have left little room for creative inspiration in my oft-times exhausted mind.

To try and shorten the times between posts, as well as stave off the judgement I foist upon myself when I haven’t given my writing the attention it deserves, I have elected to start this series focused on things that inspire me. Be they poems, music, movies, or literature, I will try my best to share one at least once a week.

These posts will be of a wholly subjective nature. These are works that have spoken to me regardless of their wider appeal or controversy. Some of them were meaningful if for no other reason than when I happened to stumble upon them in the course of my life. Some, I have revisited only to find that they did not hold the weight they once did. They will be included regardless as they still make up the craftmanship of the ladder that is my life. That all being said, I welcome any and all discussion in the comments, so long as it is civil.

With no further rambling, I offer the first example of “Things That Inspire.” Thank you for humoring me.

***

“Alone”

by Edgar Allen Poe:

From childhood’s hour I have not been

As others were—I have not seen

As others saw—I could not bring

My passions from a common spring—

From the same source I have not taken

My sorrow—I could not awaken

My heart to joy at the same tone—

And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone—

Then—in my childhood—in the dawn

Of a most stormy life—was drawn

From ev’ry depth of good and ill

The mystery which binds me still—

From the torrent, or the fountain—

From the red cliff of the mountain—

From the sun that ’round me roll’d

In its autumn tint of gold—

From the lightning in the sky

As it pass’d me flying by—

From the thunder, and the storm—

And the cloud that took the form

(When the rest of Heaven was blue)

Of a demon in my view—

***

I first stumbled across this specific poem during my post-high school years when I was really struggling to find my footing in life. An angsty teen-turned withdrawn young adult, the prose immediately spoke to me. Echoing in my heart a kindred spirit I had always felt I had shared with, well, no one.

I had, of course, known of Edgar Allen Poe since elementary school. I had read his more prolific works: “The Raven,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “Black Cat,” and “The Cask of Amontillado” being those which stood out most. I had always enjoyed the subtle current of unease his works invoked, as well as the pacing and feeling of mounting dread. However, reading Poe had never progressed for me further than a task to be undertaken at the school desk, a passing grade to be achieved in English class.

After the final bell rang on what would be the summation of my schooling career, and I found myself thrust out into the adult world, I, admittedly, thought little of those literary works that had sparked my interest whilst I graced the suffocating halls of the various academic institutions I had attended. I had always had a love of the written word, both the consuming and creation of it, but, finding myself unchained by assignment or grade, I pursued authors and works that had not been forced upon me by curriculum nor syllabus.

Eventually, over the course of my dropping out of college, and the subsequent job-hopping that came thereafter, I began to return to things that had once caught my ear or eye. By this point, I had almost completely stopped writing. I had prolifically done so through my schooling years. Notebooks upon notebooks of, mostly, embarrassing fanfiction. Punctuated now and again by scribbles of poetry and scratchings of erotica. I believe that it was on Tumblr, the puppies-to-porn days, that I stumbled upon a post highlighting a work of Edgar Allen Poe I had never seen before. That being, of course, the aforementioned poem: “Alone.”

My outcast’s heart sang as I read the lines, then reread them, then looked up a recording of somebody else reading it so that I might close my eyes and just let the words sink through my hardened shell to the caged creative within. Afterwards, I printed up a copy and hung it on the wall of my childhood bedroom, which I still occupied in my father’s house, having not the funds to afford my own place yet.

Sadly, inspiration to write was not all the poem awoke within me. Throughout my middle and high school years I had often taken blade to flesh in desperation for an outlet for feelings I could not comprehend within me. Being older now, substance abuse had entered my repertoire, and many were the nights that by lamplight I would read the poem, hanging upon my wall, as liquor burned my throat and cocaine stung my nostrils. With these tools I attempted to tear from me the words to put to page to satiate my need to release them from heart and mind.

Though those years are behind me now, save the errant, lonesome night, the memories of them still grant me inspiration whenever I need to tap into darker feelings in my writing. Sometimes I even find myself, on a night off, once the whiskey starts to sing through my veins, pulling up a recording reading of “Alone” once more, closing my eyes, and allowing the words to sing to my creative heart once more.