When Writing is a Powerful Spell
on writing with OCD
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I wrote a lot of poems as a kid. My first poem was a haiku about a cat. Reader, I never had a cat since my parents and brother are all allergic, but I loved animals. As I got older, the poems shifted to teenage love sonnets. The subjects were my many unrequited loves. I would write a poem and be done with it. No edits. No looking back.
As a kid, I dealt with a lot of anxiety and much of this anxiety would show up in the way of obsessive intrusive thoughts. I would not edit poems because my brain told me it would be “bad” if I did. Sometimes I wouldn’t even write a poem, because my brain told me it may (or may not) come true. If I wrote a poem about a specific person, my brain would tell me they would leave me. It was like writing a spell into being.
I believed my brain too often.
It still stifles my creativity sometimes. I still have difficulty writing things down for this reason. If it’s something innocuous, then it’s fine. But if it’s deeper, more tangible, then I get a sense of fright and rigidity. I am trying to resist this from stopping me, though. I am trying to learn that if writing is a spell, that surely that means it has as much of a chance to bring something good or neutral as it does something “bad” or uncomfortable. I’m also trying to remember that sometimes words written down can just be words.
In high school, I did an independent study and wrote and self-published a chap book of poems titled, Wrap Me in the Blue. In 2015, I self-published another book of poems called, Leftovers after a particularly horrific breakup. You can still buy that one, but I caution against it because it’s not great, and I’ve since moved away from the style of poems—short, obvious, Instagrammable—I was really influenced by Rupi Kaur and Nayyriah Waheed at the time. Waheed is excellent and I still love her work, but I’m not as interested in Kaur and have read many criticisms of her, including that Waheed accused her of plagiarism. Poet Warsan Shire has also accused Kaur of plagiarism. Both Waheed and Shire are Black women. Kaur is a South Asian woman. The plagiarism allegations look pretty damning. I agree with much of the criticism, and also, it feels gross and weird to see a lot of white people tear down a woman of color. No matter what you think of Kaur, she has managed to get a lot of people interested in poetry.
Intrusive thoughts, anxiety, and superstitions are exhausting (and there is a special place in hell—if I believed in hell—for astrologers who engage in fear mongering techniques!). The rigidity of it all is tiresome and lonely. For me, it’s a daily practice. I haven’t written much poetry in a while, but I don’t have the same superstitions I once did. I know that the “rules” my brain comes up with it don’t always need to be followed.
As I work on finishing my book, I’m also dreaming up a new book of poems, called Lift Me Out of the Wound. I haven’t had much time to give to this project yet, but I’m excited to get back to poetry—to something that feels so powerful (and sometimes) scary.
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This week’s song:
Hi Lachrista. Do you ever consider writing to be good spells? I like to think mine inspires people towards what could be, and what we want to see in the future.