4am. Crickets LOUD AF. Cramps on full tilt. Great time to write.
Poetry is a healing modality. Art in journal is. There are plenty of therapists and counselors that use art therapy. I just didn't realize that's what I was doing at first.
Facebook shares memories with you each day. Do y'all remember the notes function? You had to use it for longer posts before. The notes are still there. Takes a little navigating to find them. Lately poems have been popping up. Poems I wrote over 10 years ago. I had a similar thought for each one, "Man, I was going through something."
I realize writing was an outlet for my emotions. From happy to sad. Anger to forgiveness. Even turned on to turned off. The safest place for me to truly express what I felt was through my writing. I could get out what I didn't always feel safe verbalizing out loud. The result became art, my art.
Each time I stop and write, there was a trigger, a muse if you will. That muse could be something inspiring, something funny, something that irritated the crap out of me, and more. The "muse" then evokes an emotion and then a thought. Sometimes, I can talk the thought out in healthy conversation. Sometimes I don't have that option. Sometimes I need to write. It may be something like this, a blog. However, my medium of choice much of the time is poetry.
What I also realized is poetry is my music. Story time!
10th grade I was dating a guy. He was really sweet. Senior at the school I was zoned for (I didn't go to my zoned school.). He loved to listen to me sing to him. One day he told me I should write a song. So I did. I sat down with Brandy's song "Broken hearted". I listened to the rhythm and the music and then wrote. No I don't have the song anymore.
He called me after I told him that I had the song. He asked me to sing it for him. I did. What I didn't realize is he had a friend that was a producer on the phone listening. Short version is he loved the song and so did his friend. The friend said I had talent and with help I could go in the studio and really do something. *Insert joyful kid screams*
Notice I don't have a story about ever having a record deal. That's because I never made it to the studio. I... I just wasn't able to go and so it never happened.
I watched as some of my favorite artists were my age. Regularly wishing for just a chance.
After awhile I let that particular passion go. I do still sing for fun. Car concerts go down. A few folks still like me to sing for them. The love of song will always be.
Poetry is the other manifestation of the song bird. I had given up any notion that my creative passions would be something I made money at. Just didn't feel realistic after that. I have a friend that for years told me my poems were good enough to be published. She would ask me if I ever went to spoken word events to share. I would laugh. Me? Nah, that's not me. I'm not good enough for that. I could never.
The words of others can absolutely hex you. Your voice over yourself, well that's a potent type of magic. The effects are longstanding and it takes dedicated work and intention to reverse the spell once you've cast it. I had negated the positive intention that her and my other friend were giving me. Shut it down. And I believed what I was saying.
Decades would go by before I would be in a place where my inner dialogue would start being more positive. DECADES would go by before I could even smile honestly at myself. At the time this transformation was happening, my life was being shaken up. Poetry was how I dealt with it. I didn't want to burden people with what was happening in my life, so I wrote.
That's a lie. I didn't want to hear, "You're such a cry baby." "Why don't you just?" It … I didn't feel safe sharing my truest emotions. I just wanted to feel safe. Even the ones I shared with still only got surface level. My poems dug deep. Then I shared my poems. That was how I took them down inside of me. Down into my shadow.
The weren't all sad. Some were full of love and passion. The passion, the erotic, the sensual... I learned recently are me claiming sovereignty over my relationship with sex. I write it the way I want it to be. It's the voice of someone who wasn't the victim of SA but is the VICTOR over it. It's very much why I'm very strong in those pieces.
In my poems you find my spiritual growth, my relationship with myself, my relationship with Goddess, my love of love, heartbreak, unrequited love, victory, loss, and more. I've decided that I need to also make space for the warrior in my writing. She often shows up in my dreams quite ferociously.
Reading my poems. Well that is a whole other level of healing. Much like me wanting to sing for others, being on stage with my poems lets me perform. It's been lately the conversation of music has come up and the little girl that wanted a record deal just feels elated. Like, "Yo we can really do this!" I feel happy for her, me. My inner child healing through this has been so real.
Performing has given me a realization of confidence I didn't feel existed for me outside of my day job. I had to reclaim that part of me back. Again self-hexing. I would say regularly that version of me at work didn't exist at home. These shows are the ritual of me breaking that spell and invoking new, more powerful magic. Magic that allows my light to shine where ever I am.
Coming to see me perform is a spiritual experience, not just for me but for the audience. I'm a Reiki Master so my voice is also a tool to invoke healing in others. So is my writing. I regularly get told my books make people cry. It's not the crying that was the intention, though it is a side effect. The intention is for you to feel. How that feeling manifests can vary. Crying though is common. That is your body releasing what needed to be cleansed and purified.
Coming up I have a show. I've been on the stage in support of others. This one is for me. The journey that I will take you on will send you through so many feelings.
You're going to feel spiritually lifted. You're going to feel love of yourself. You're going to feel love of others. You're going to feel romantic love. You're going to feel lust and sensuality. It's going to be expansive and elevating.
I am excited about it. Buy a ticket and come enjoy yourself. Buy a ticket because you want to see me successful. Buy a ticket for someone else. Either way you are going to be blessed by the experience.
Creativity overall fuels me. Poetry is just one way I do it. I write stories (which I'll read a couple that night). I create herbal oils and baths. I draw occasionally. I even do commission work. I just like to create. It makes me feel good. Isn't that the point?
If I could leave you with an inspired action, it would be find your passion and do something with it. It doesn't have to be a career. It can be simply a hobby. Just find it and do something with it. The energy associated with it will fuel you in a way you can't really describe to others. Even this blog doesn't really do my poetry justice. So, find your passion and then enjoy it.
For those interested, I do share my poems as spoken word on TikTok and IG as NiyahShalom. All of my books are available for purchase on Amazon. I'm published under both Niyah Shalom and Daniyah Morgan.
If you would like a commission, you can book time to discuss via my services page. If you just want to support, I have a $3.33 monthly subscription called "Eating Artist" where you can simply donate and I'll post a poem or story for you to enjoy. Those posts are only visible to subscribers.
Thank you so much for your love and engagement with what I create.
