Introduction

My name is Elizabeth Sawyer, and I am an amateur poet.

This blog is not about getting me published (although I won't object if someone would like to put my words in print). This blog is not about me whining about the follies of my life. This is about one human being trying to make sense of her own emotions, and in the process, if you are out there, I hope it helps you make sense of yours. People are vulnerable and scared, and we build walls to protect ourselves, and sometimes we are so closed off from ourselves that we forget how to understand what we're feeling. This is where I put my foot down.

My name is Ellie, and this is my attempt to understand my feelings.

Vying for Freedom
A girl with golden tresses looks out of the window of her tower
--a place her adopted mother stuck her long ago
with the adhesive effect of pine sap--
and she thinks about how through all the years she's spent,
exploring and hiding and learning,
that she's discovered, memorized, grown complacent to
all the nooks and corners and spots hidden away in her little world,
her little prison.

One day, she asks her mother,
when will I get to see more of the out-of-doors?
The old woman laughs, a cynical chuckle meant for more sinister intent,
and pats the girl's head of sunshine and buttercups to say,
when you are ready.

A robin's hatchling never learns to fly until he gains a certain curiosity
--what's beyond the ledge of my downy nest?
He'll never know unless he's very brave, unless he's very daring.
(Bold is a color best worn with your chin held high.)

So while his father is out, snooping in the tall wheat and grasses
for worms, juicy and succulent, the fuel for the flight to be had someday,
he leaps, and despite a wholehearted thrust towards the sky, he tumbles.
Aerial acrobatics must wait for another day.
Nevertheless, his father, all pomp and red-breasted pride, says,
There's always another day; try again tomorrow, dear heart.
The hatchling's bruised ego is cooled and tempered, and
he is readied for a new day.

I'm in the parking lot when I hear the tortured scream
of a beater truck that seen too many halting stoplights.
My hair has fallen out of its restraints, and the wind catches it,
Zephyr playing with the copper brown strands in his fingers,
tugging me back east, teasing me with thoughts of a home back
somewhere on the other side of the mountains, underneath a Big Sky.
Someday.
I'll return someday.