A Rewrite: I Think I Might Want More

I told you what I wanted was cliff love,

the kind full of reckless abandon and passion.

A precipice space where we could face fears of

explosions, implosions, and things of that fashion.

I thought I was craving this perilous home–

one with certainty never guaranteed.

Lived life barely prepared to stay still or to roam,

and I thought I had quashed every worry or need.

But the rain didn’t lightly sprinkle; it poured.

And I realized umbrellas just aren’t enough

as the winds all around me snarled and roared

with two feet unsteady on the edge of the bluff.

I no longer wish to be stranded up here

all alone and with you on the ledge.

Now I know that I’m not weak for having these fears,

and I know I need shelter far from the edge.

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Photo by Valdemaras D. from Pexels

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The original version of this poem that you can find here, has been stuck in my brain since it was “finished.” Usually, I don’t post poetry until it has sat unmodified for a little while so that I know for sure that I am happy with the final version. That poem, though, I decided to post just a few days after I initially wrote and edited it.

With all that said, I don’t hate the original poem or have any plans to take it down. That poem had more to do with trialing an uncomfortable rhyme scheme, and I think it did come out uncomfortable, so in many ways it was a success.

The issue was not that the poem was bad; rather, it was that three lines in its second stanza kept needling me because how much I like them. Those were the lines “But the rain didn’t lightly sprinkle; it poured./And I realized umbrellas just aren’t enough/as the winds all around me snarled and roared.”

There was just something about the imagery of those words that I felt held so much more power than the straight-forward letter-like style that defined the rest of the poem. I worried that I had wasted them on that poem.

Then, I remembered that it’s my blog and my intellectual property, and I get to make the rules.

I can write and rewrite and rewrite and just edit the original post or make a new post or delete the post altogether. I can even reedit a poem privately and eventually release it in a book.

So the poem above is a new one based around the three lines I love so much.