Fire I Wasn’t Ready to Hold

If patience were a myth and I were the confidant of Prometheus, then I would be chained beside him; bound by the force of my own urgency, rushing toward a larger audience. My ambitions were molten. This story is a container for both my younger self and the self I forged later. I only came together after the explosion.

I took an unripe fruit and studied the streak of green running down its side, convincing myself it was ready. But I lacked experience more than clarity. The ink on my page behaved the same way, still steaming, still spreading to the edges instead of sinking between the lines and drying. That steaming ink held a part of me that doubted myself. I was trying too hard to be heard. I wanted permanence, yet what I created was too half-born to be understood as tender or conscious.

I lifted my pen towards the sky as if the gods were watching, a young jewel of nativity held up to impress Zeus before I understood what his standards demanded. I had not yet learned the difference between radical and reckless, so I crossed the line, speaking at the page instead of speaking for the audience. Zeus knew my fire was dangerous in a young hand, yet valuable once refined. Instead of saying how much community we have lost by wanting to be too different from each other.

Through this new line I tried to redeem it: “Beauty could not be man-made, but men have known many beasts.” I held a propane torch in my hand and blew out radical imagery too quickly, line by line. The aim should have been gradual, thoughts held to the end of a verse.

I used no allegory, because I did not know of its power to drive close in symbols instead of being direct, and there was no pacing. I spat metaphor onto the page; lines like “Grazing our flesh on rust” were as vague as they were abstract. I then went from dripping, to craving, then to fidelity. For this piece I should have stayed with the line “Beauty could not be man-made, but men have known many beasts,” and let it bloom into my meaning. It would have carried a full life through my words, not just shown the shattering.

Opportunities came while I was still learning. The manuscript was slipping. I could no longer hear my voice, and within that I could not find the truth of how we are all suffering in society. When I cannot pick just one image, the poem becomes thoughts. The poem was forming a storm of ideologies without rain, and I was oversharpening each line like “My love is bedridden,” when the poem was not about love. It left me exhausted, and that was when I felt like an imposter. I could never pass for someone skilled. Paralysed without knowing what I could change. Without having the time to change it.

But I submitted the five pages anyway. I had palpitations, yet I was certain that I would be picked because I completed a manuscript. All I needed to do was refresh the page on the day they announced the winner. They wished to receive it through allegory. I had sent five pages for my submission, and they said if I submitted it, I would need ninety pages ready. But I did not. I wrote the ninety pages after sending my five-page submission.

When I was rejected, I saw it as relief, because deep down I knew I would offend instead of relate. I did not keep malice because of this. As I had mentioned before, I was learning while I was writing the manuscript. I revealed what I saw too soon. I took their rejection as a door closing softly. The soft closing of the door felt like a weighted blanket, calming my anxiety that perhaps they understood, even if I was not ready.

I had worked harder than I needed to. That was why the rejection almost had me thinking that I did not understand what radical meant and that the judges thought I was not as serious as I truly was. But there was so much missing: synecdoche, litotes. Without these, I had no foundation. I only went as far as forming ideas; I sent ideas instead of a poem. I knew I did not know what I was doing, but I wanted to soothe myself instead of sinking too far, which would prevent me from returning to Vocal. What was strong was the topic; what was weak was the execution.

I learnt too late, and even though I was like a painter discovering colour theory in other people’s work, how they do not have to be direct to be radical, that job takes longer than the world is willing to wait. The embarrassment of trying to pass ideas as poetry taught me the importance of doing things slowly instead of allowing the world to speed me up.

I forgive myself for thinking that the world would not wait, for being that first fire that smoked more than it burned. But what I forgive myself for most was being willing to look at when learning should end and my projects should begin. Completing the manuscript taught me that I did not yet have enough life experience. Even though I will never self-publish this manuscript, it remains a trophy for finishing the first layers in four months. Now I have something to pull from.

So I say again: if patience were a myth and I were the confidant of Prometheus, then I would not be chained beside him. Urgency will no longer force me. My disciplined flame looks like reaching for a technique and building from that technique. I carry the fire. What stayed unfinished in this manuscript was not the expansiveness of the ideas, but the actual writing of the poems themselves. The drafts taught me not to start blind, that tools exist for a reason, that you can be blind when time is scarce, and more prepared when there is room to breathe.