When I was younger I used to collect song lyrics. Every time I found a new song I loved and wanted to sing along to I would go online, copy the words, and save them to my note app. Despite my love of music and all that has to do with it, the way my brain seems naturally wired I struggled with so much related to it that I loved. I was never the sort of person who could listen to a song on the radio a hundred times and commit it to memory. I needed to keep these songs some place where I could bring them up easily and review them again and again and again.

I don’t know when it is I stopped saving song lyrics, but I did. I never got any better at remembering the words to songs, but I no longer sang to the radio like I used to either. I reached a point in my life where music no longer mattered to me like it once did.

After reading this article I realised how much collecting and reading over those lyrics probably helped me as a writer, and most importantly, poet. While at the time I wasn’t a song writer, I wrote a lot of poetry and as we all know poetry is just unspoken spoken word, and spoken word is lyrics without the instrumental behind it. It’s all music in some way.

Lately I’ve been feeling the urge to write music. A reinvigorated love of music, I can’t continue to go through life ignoring this urge. As Gerilyn writes:

“If the words are in your head, you have to let them out. Otherwise, you will be buried alive.”

I spent so much of my life ignoring my desire to create certain things. I never drew often because I didn’t think my skills were ever up to par despite the fact that I loved drawn media such as comics and cartoons. I was in choir, but rarely dared to put myself out there. I’d often sabotage myself when it came to deciding solos either by not trying at all, or not doing my best. I never danced or tried acting despite having a love and desire to do so.

This is the year I ignore my own discomfort and try all the things I’ve been too embarrassed and scared to try. Art fails when one is unwilling to be vulnerable and honest. Here’s to a note pad full of lyrics once again, the words from the songs I so love, and the words I hope to be writing myself.

Wish me luck!