Rinsta, Finsta, and… Poetry?

I have an anonymous poetry account on Instagram. 

Whoa. 

Betcha didn’t know that, did ya? 

It’s something I started last summer during June and, using a pen name, I consistently posted almost every day until school started. I sorta just got caught up in the chaos of college apps and school work, which sent my account through a month-long dead period. 

But why did I even make that account in the first place?

I gotta go farther back on the timeline to answer that properly, so here we go. 

 

Okay. I think it’s safe to say that high school hit every one of us differently, and for me, it hit in a way I really couldn’t have predicted. Come end of freshman year my mental health just… crashed. I hit lows I didn’t even know were possible to fall down to. Even then I refused to believe I had any kind of mental health issue because my entire life up to that point, I’d been told I was one of the bubbliest and happiest of kids.

But when all of that turned upside down, I turned to unhealthy coping mechanisms, anything to rationalize the disoriented life I’d suddenly collapsed into. That really, really sucked. 10/10 would not recommend.

It was a year of that hell before I tried something new. I began journaling. It was a huge step in the right direction, but it wasn’t quite enough. The more I was able to express my emotions with pen and paper, the more unshackled I felt, and regular journaling wasn’t cutting it. So I took a stab at poetry. Holy fOCK. It was like Baby Suggs slapped the crap out of me and made me lay down all my swords and shields. Poetry changed EVERYTHING, nO cap. It became my healthy coping mechanism.

So, for months, I kept a poetry journal. This past summer, I decided to publicize them, though not through my own name. Yet. To be honest, a part of me is terrified of what others will think. Using a pen name allowed me to sort of refract my identity so that that girl would take the criticism, not me. 

I understand the criticism I get, though.

I did write some dark stuff. 

But my writing changed as my mental health improved. I wrote pieces that echoed the hope I had for myself… like this one:

(I was debating for a while whether or not I should slap one of my poems into this blog, but here’s to taking risks)

All my heart’s a city

a thousand streets at night, 

a vast expanse of ebony

with scattered starry lights.

 

But as I looked to other’s hearts,

I yearned to change my own.

How colorful their cities shined,

mine so dark and all alone. 

 

As envy reined I sought to change

and failed to see my sin.

All my lights were winking out

like my city had never been.

————

I failed to see the beauty of

my starry starry heart,

and mourned my city’s thousand streets

that I’d torn and torn apart.

 

There she is. (What are your thoughts?) For a long time I think I just suppressed my emotions, a mistake that’s sO unhealthy but sO easy to make. 

Things would be, uhh, quite different if I hadn’t adopted this branch of what’s called “bibliotherapy.” According to goodtherapy.com, bibliotherapy is a “therapeutic approach that uses literature to support good mental health [and] is a versatile and cost-effective treatment option often adapted or used to supplement other types of therapy.” 

There are literally Certified and Registered Poetry Therapists that gear their therapy towards poetry because there are so many people who vibe with it specifically. With mental health stigma gradually dissipating  (YES!!), I think it’s increasingly important to be aware of all these options. Health is individual, y’all. That’s the one thing I remember from sophomore year Health and it’s so so true. 

Even the way I’m approaching my poetry now can be extremely different from the next person, who might want to keep theirs completely private. 

My original intention in making my poetry account was to take my poems and put them up somewhere as a testament to my progress so that I might share them with everyone some day.

So here we are. Maybe. As of right now, I won’t leak the handle. Hehe. But if you somehow find it, I won’t deny that it’s mine 😉