I don’t read Edgar Allan Poe like something distant.
i read him like something deafening.
determined, doctrined, devoted,
denounced, debilitated,
defined, drugged, doomed,
and divined.
i feel like the way we write is similar
relentless.
i can write about the same thing
over and over again,
just trying to understand it,
trying to pick it apart.
he isn’t telling a story to move on.
he’s obsessing.
repeating.
constantly returning to the same wound.
“nevermore” isn’t an answer
it’s a loop.
and i think that’s what i do too.
i write in circles,
repeating the same words,
the same feelings,
until something reveals itself.
i spiral in plain sight.
i return to the same themes
loss, longing, confusion, distance, desire,
emotional hunger.
i’m not writing to solve anything.
i’m writing to sit inside of it.
to understand its shape.
its weight.
he feels almost addicted to his own sorrow
asking questions he already knows will hurt him.
and i understand that.
because writing is bittersweet.
it’s like touching a sore tooth with your tongue
not because it helps,
but because you need to feel it.
writing makes me feel heard
when the weight of everything feels too heavy to carry quietly.
i can’t not analyze what i’m going through.
and writing places me back inside it
but through a different lens.
a new perspective.
my eyes are sharp.
my mind is quick.
my heart is open,
but my walls are high.
i think that’s why i write the way i do
because i’m always observing.
it feels like i’m watching everything
from the outside in.
like i’m not even fully living my life,
just witnessing it
from the sidelines,
like a girl at a football game
who understands the moment
but isn’t inside of it.
and maybe that distance
is what lets me see clearly.
Edgar Allan Poe
graciously a bronx native
is someone i resonate with deeply.
not because i’m trying to mirror him,
but because i recognize the way he sits inside a feeling
until it becomes something else.
he’s unhinged in a way that feels honest.
the birds drive him mad
and that motif finds its way into my writing too.
not because of him,
but because of my own experiences,
my own encounters,
my own way of understanding what returns,
what watches,
what refuses to leave.
i like the way he traps you in a room.
you feel it.
you understand it.
it becomes claustrophobic.
and in my best work,
i try to do the same
to trap you in a moment.
whether you’re inside my mind,
listening to my thoughts unfold,
or standing in my kitchen,
watching something ordinary
become something else entirely.
i don’t want to paint wide landscapes.
i want to suffocate you in the feeling.
i want you in my late nights,
in my in-between,
in my wanting,
in the aftermath.
i want you to sit with me long enough
to help me name the pain
not solve it.
but understand it.
and watch me survive it.
because the most beautiful things
come after the chaos.
the relief.
the rebuild.
i feel too deeply.
i attach too easily.
and i see everything
every connection,
every sign.
to understand me,
you have to understand a man who lived long before me.
because nothing is ever new
it just returns in different forms.
history repeats itself,
but so do minds like his.
like mine.
and whether or not my work is recognized,
it doesn’t change what it is.
because what makes something great
isn’t attention
it’s the desire behind it,
the passion,
the relentlessness of a mind
that refuses to let something go
until it understands it.
i don’t move through the world quietly.
i question it.
i sit inside it,
pull it apart,
try to make sense of what most people
are willing to pass by.
i hope you feel my certainty
as i find my voice
not just hear it.