Daily Poems as Prayer

Recent reflections through my own poetry practice, and three prompts to help with your own processing.

Every day for the past month, I have written a poem.

They’ve each been from my perspective, for me, about something that happened in my day. I’ve written about watching my grandmother wash her hair in the kitchen sink; the New York Knicks; a shockingly long yoga class at the YMCA; the weight of an AA sobriety chip. I’ve written about the way my heartbeat keeps me up at night and my fear that stress might kill me. A Costco parking lot. A sunset. A friendship bracelet.

In the past month I’ve started pulling tarot cards, getting quiet, getting organized. I’m shedding a lot. I’m growing my spine. It’s exhausting and intense and I want it to stop but the ball is already rolling. Grow! Grow! my daily poems say, and I haul myself out of bed again. I made an altar, and I sit at it with my incense and crystals, and I take a deep, deep breath.

I guess all the times in my life when I’ve stepped whole into myself have been painful. Five years ago, I seemed hell-bent on chewing a hole in my cheek from all the stress I was holding, blood flooding the mouth, and I don’t even think about that anymore. I let it go; moved on; kept going. I know that I’ll do so again.