I get frustrated writing now,
feeling that no one will ever truly understand.
Understand what I went through,
understand my writing style,
understand my old soul.

I find myself writing love poems
just to connect with them.
Connect with their pain,
connect with a simpler message,
a forced connection.

I want to draw on my favourites
for the inspiration to create my best work.
Inspired by Chaucer's ability to write a social satire,
filled with sexual desire.
Inspired by Homer's tales of adventure,
driven by forces of fate.
Inspired by John Milton's hope to justify
the ways of God to men.

It's interesting reading Paradise Lost
I always believed Milton meant to humanize
the devil, justifying the actions of a monster.
Like Shelley's Frankenstein.
Today I think about Paradise Lost
and wonder why I so easily connected
to the force of evil.
Missing the intended message
to justify God's actions,
growing up believing
all of his actions were just.

Again, I get frustrated --
thinking that people always
seem to miss my intended message too.
While Milton writes of a challenged
obedience to God,
I express my inner desires,
my fears, my love, my joy, my pain,
my guilt,
my shame,
my obedience to myself.

I pour my heart out onto the page
giving them everything
I should probably keep to myself.
Yet the disconnection
appears evidently to me each time,
ensuring my secrets are indeed safe.

I have to put my pen down,
feeling defeated all over again.
I pick up my phone to share
another hilarious post
related to my devastating,
yet comical,
love life.
That they will understand.
Understand the joke,
understand the message,
maybe even understand me
a little more than they did before.

I almost let the frustration
discourage me again,
I tell myself there's no point.
No one will miss it but they'll be glad
to be rid of the obligation.
I continue anyways,
because of Chaucer, Homer, Milton,
because of Shelley and Austen,
even Dickinson.

Their work drives the creation of my own.
Finding inspiration in masterpieces
created by other tortured souls
in a time long before my own.
Maybe if I was born a hundred years ago,
then I wouldn't feel as though
I'm not creating any legitimate
connections with the world.

Today I face another lesson
about battling my continuous frustration
surrounding my inability to reach them.
Maybe tomorrow they'll start to understand.

Be kind,
Evangeline.