Letters from sixteen

Latin

Poems inspired by latin phrases.

Ab absurdo
From the absurd.

I am starting to consider ways to let go of the warm feeling,
It's become so consuming and I want to add some distance between it before it kills me.
Addiction is not a rational illness, much of me has no interest in being different,
That part of me will hold onto those memories but I hope I lose what's slipping through my fingers like sand.
I am often surprised about the light I feel when I choose to leave it behind, even if it's just for one day, I am deeply proud of the times I do it sober.
I told myself that I'd go two weeks from yesterday entirely sober, although I am unsure of the days ahead I have faith that I can show myself the brighter side of things.
I do not have a strong belief I will push past this irrational way of being, but I am pushing past my poor judgment.

Bonum commune hominis
Common good of a man.

I have been in my little dark age for a little while now,
I knew I wasn't quite ready to write happy poems, sometimes you just do.
I needed some time to experience all that I pushed away for a little while without trying to change it.
I needed to wallow in things for just a little while, to see the night for what it was before the sun could rise.
While I am not sure when the sun will shine on my face, I have a sense it may be peaking through the trees sometime soon.
I am taking those steps to make it to morning, and I have more faith every day that I will.

Cacoethes Scribendi
The insatiable desire to write.

I used to be an artist of many mediums, but as of recently it seems those have fallen through my fingers like sand, and writing has become the most important.
I write when I wake up at midnight, I write over my morning coffee, I write at school and work, I write before closing my eyes and in the moments between, I write.
I am almost always passionate but this sense of monofocus is very new to me.
I've enjoyed every one of these moments and these poems have been a hand to hold during difficult times.

Damnant quod non intellegunt
They condemn what they do not understand.

I've come to accept myself as the person I am slowly, I've spent many years denying and dismissing my attractions, but I've come to realize those who will not accept this simply don't have a clue.
Maybe many wouldn't view me as a man, but I've grown to not mind that, I know who I am, and of those people many would view my attractions as lesser than, but I know what is true.
Maybe they don't understand, and maybe I no longer wonder about those who don't care about me.
I see that I am more than a sum of missing parts.

Ex duris gloria
From suffering comes glory.

While I do not believe I am a poet because I hurt, many of the best poems I've written are about the sunny times. It takes a certain kind of passion to turn pain into art.
Much of my work is about my pain, about the struggles of the rainy days or stormy childhood, an ode to what once was and still aches.
It's quite a cynical thing when your best works were created on your darkest days.
But it is not the pain that makes the writer, but the writer who turns pain into pages.

fortis in arduis
Strong in adversary.

While I view myself as the type to fall apart when the wind blows too hard, I am beginning to think more is true.
When I was young I survived years of abuse, I oftentimes didn't think I would, but I did.
I then grew up to knock myself down time after time, but I've picked myself up, again and again.

Graviora manent
Heavier things remain

Although I wrote about the end of my little dark age, I wrote about getting sober and spending days in the sun, I am not entirely sure this chapter is over.
I made it two days and for that I am proud but by the third I was back to chasing that warm feeling.
I am not entirely worried about my current state, I've managed to pretend and I've gotten this far, but I do worry about the days ahead.
Addiction is not known to get better, mine sucks me dry more so every day, so while I have kept up the act I worry I won't always be able to.
My cognitive abilities are declining, I can't remember much of anything anymore, yet I continue to poison myself.
I've become more obsessional by the hour, it seems to be all I can think about, all I want to talk about, all I want to write about.
These things aren't thought to get better until you stop, and I can't imagine doing so.

Homo sum human a me nihil alienum puto
I am a human being, nothing human is strange to me.

It is only human to be afraid of judgement, to show something besides the mask we wear is not only vulnerable but it is terrifying.
I would argue that those who really love us will not be harshly critical of our multiple faces and struggles.
Those who are really human will not judge what it means to be.
I believe that given the space most if not all of our secrets will leave us.
People often confide in me, I do not believe this is because of who I am but what I do for them.
Nobody likes hiding, even if we tell ourselves we do, everyone wants to be seen.
So when we see a place we don't have to conceal ourselves in, a place to be truly human in, we will do nothing but so.

In vacuo
In a void.

I couldn't tell you when the separation started, maybe it's always been there, but I can write about it now.
When I'm with others I can't seem to feel close to them, why would I?
With this wall between us, how could I?
There have been moments when I thought the wall had walked away and left, but they never last for long.
The wall isn't always as thick as it could be, but it's always there.
If I'm lucky it's a window with foggy glass, at least they can see me, but I am isolated.
I am isolated when I'm with the people that know me most.
I am isolated when the wall wears thin.
I am isolated when I'm with the people I feel most understood by.
I don't force myself to be someone else when they are around, I just find myself being that person.

Memento Mori
Remember you will die.

In moments of idly passing the time I must remind myself that one day will come when I wake up for the last time.
In all truthfulness this day may be sixty years from now but I am better than to make such grandiose assumptions.
Most of us think we will live forever, until the sunsets for the last time. I have never been one of those people, although I wish I was.
Still despite my lack of faith in myself and an afterlife I must enjoy the time I have.
I must write under the moonlight and dance in the sun, after all what else is there to do?

Noli me tangere
Do not touch me.

Truly conflicting it is to write about your sorrows while being scared to admit they ache.
I have written endlessly about those nights of terror, but admitting that they may linger until my last sunrise is a pain unlike any I've ever felt.
Since those times after sunset, possibly before then, I have not been accepting of the touch of another.
It has never been an experience I can view as pleasurable, despite my efforts I may never want to be held.
It's not that I don't wish for it, but when it comes I am always wondering what comes next, I wonder what they will do to me when given the chance.
I wonder how they will hurt me when I am weak and vulnerable, I wonder what happens before sunrise.

Non omnis mortar
I shall not die.

During those years of abuse I didn't think I was going to die, I was taught to think I wasn't going to survive.
He viewed my life as something to threaten when his external identity was possibly going to be defaced.
I lived in terror, there are not words to describe the fear I had and still hold.
When you are nothing more than dirt, when you wonder about making it to tomorrow before you've lost all your teeth, growing into a happy individual isn't a last thought, it's not a worry at all.
I feel as if I am only beginning to actualize as a person, I am just beginning to be more than afraid.
In these times of becoming I say with a shaky voice and an unsteady hand that this will not be the death of me.
I was left to pieces but I can be glued back together, I was broken but I am still whole.
Above all else I survived.
I lived through years of abuse.
Now that it is over I will not let myself down, that little girl survived and I will show her all she can become.