Becoming the Poem

When I started writing, I started writing for Instagram. As you might imagine, my writing quickly became more about likes and shares and less about becoming a writer. Because of this, I never gave myself the space or permission to play, explore, and express my creativity free of judgment.

Naturally, as a high achiever, I would place an ungodly high expectation on my creative expression to generate more likes and comments than my previous posts. I demanded it of myself and relied on what I know best, willpower and perfection, to make it a reality. 

After all, building a big, successful brand was at risk.

I do think there were times where my writing sessions were honest. My muse would visit occasionally, and while I would briefly lose myself in her bed of words and have the occasional writing orgasm, I had no real interest in knowing her. I had no interest in courting, playing or experimenting with her.

It was all about performance, perfection and producing—the three gods I’ve been bowing to since I was just a young boy.

In 1996, Nick Cave wrote a now very famous letter to MTV rejecting the award they wanted to give him. Nick would go on to explain why…

“My relationship with my muse is a delicate one at the best of times and I feel that it is my duty to protect her from influences that may offend her fragile nature. She comes to me with the gift of song and in return I treat her with the respect I feel she deserves — in this case this means not subjecting her to the indignities of judgement and competition. My muse is not a horse and I am in no horse race and if indeed she was, still I would not harness her to this tumbrel — this bloody cart of severed heads and glittering prizes. My muse may spook! May bolt! May abandon me completely!”

I remember when I first read this and feeling the shame wrap around me like heavy cloak.

I treated my muse not just like a racehorse, but like how the wounded little boy inside me, trapped in a man’s body, treated sex for so many years—with an agenda. I called on her only when I needed something, used her to get what I came for, and then moved on, leaving her forgotten until the next time I had a need to fill.

As you might imagine, after treating my muse like this for years, writing started to feel like any toxic and codependent relationship—soul exhausting My need for my creative expression to be something for me that it was never supposed to be eventually took a toll.

So, I quit.

Coming into the year, I told Kara that my goal wasn’t to build a bigger speaking business—it was to step into a fuller, truer expression of who I am. Ten months later, that desire feels even more alive in me.

For so long, I’ve relied on the performer, producer, and perfectionist within me. They’ve been my loyal soldiers, helping me build a life I love and a message I’m proud to share. But every night, as I lay in bed, I know: this is not the fullest expression of me.

There’s something deeper—a quiet current—wanting to move through me. I can’t name it yet, but I can feel it.

So much of my work this year has been creating the inner safety to let those loyal soldiers finally go home. They served me well, helping me survive and even thrive. But in this season, they are no longer what I need.

Instead, it’s time for the little artist boy—the one who’s lived in the shadows all these years—to step into the light.

Of course, this is a tender, vulnerable place to be. In so many ways, it feels like death—a letting go of the familiar, a loss of what I’ve known. Grief shows up. Fear lingers. The uncertainty feels like standing at the edge of an unmarked map.

But for the first time, I also feel possibility—not the kind that lives in the mind, but the kind that stirs in the soul.

I don’t know what lies ahead or how this journey will unfold, but that doesn’t matter. What matters most is that I’m beginning to realize what the Spanish poet Jaime Gil de Biedma meant when he wrote…

All my life, I believed I wanted to be a poet. But deep down, I just wanted to be a poem.