Behind the Story – Not a Member of the Tortured Poets Department

The ‘Tortured Poets Department’ is reportedly a term used by a group of male singer-songwriter dudes as the name of their group chat according to media sources. It’s also reportedly where Taylor Swift got the idea to use this as the title of her most-recent album due to her previous singer-songwriter boyfriend being a part of this group of dudes. And I will say this: when I heard this all I could think of was a bunch of dudes gazing into the depths of their navels and wailing about it while trying to hide out from the world. Because supposedly, Taylor broke up with her tortured poet-singer songwriter boyfriend because she didn’t want to hide out in the woods or in the back of pub somewhere. Instead, she’s hit the road and is on track to finish her massive world tour at the end of year.

I started writing poetry when I began scribbling in notebooks when I was around ten, eleven years old (Taylor Swift was twelve when she began writing songs and taking guitar lessons). Now I never took up the guitar because I would have been a left-handed player so that would have meant a re-strung instrument and two, my eye-hand coordination sucks because typing and cooking are about the only things I can do using eye-hand coordination. Unlike Taylor, I eventually put my poetry aside and got into scriptwriting, then novel-writing, and now I blog, write short stories, short novels, full-length novels, long-form essays and articles, and poetry.

Around 2018 if I remember correctly, I began to write and post my poetry. And one ginormous dick-headed asshole in my Facebook writers group decided that he was going to shit all over my poetry simply because he could. He was a self-righteous arrogant pin-prick who took his fragile male ego out on me, then probably hated the fact that I took my poems down and stopped writing so he had to move on and torment someone else. Now if he or anyone tried to do that to me first, I’d shrug them off and continue to write and post as much I wanted to and if they did get up in my face, I’d tell them to ‘fuck off’ then block them in every way possible.

Back then, I wasn’t in a place to stand up for myself and be proud of my work. At that time, my silence was shattering so hard and so loudly I could barely think sometimes. I felt so overwhelmed and exhausted and poetry for me at that time was like a light in a very dark tunnel. So when this fucking asshole came at me, it hurt. It made me feel shame and guilt for wanting to find a light and go towards it. His bullshit-snide cruel comments made me feel so stupid, and worst of all, like I was doing something wrong. But he was an exception, and when I stopped posting my poems people asked why and with shame and guilt I replied that I felt stupid and felt like maybe other people were somehow offended by what I was doing and I needed to stop. Yes, I was this fucked up back then but when you’re in a vulnerable place like I was, this is some of the shit you can feel when someone comes after simply because they can.

Like Taylor Swift, I hid out for a long time, taking tentative and soft steps and listening to the quiet. That quiet time can heal and it is needed. But like Taylor Swift, I feel like coming out into the world, hitting the road and seeing what’s out there. And like Taylor, I’m putting my work out there and if you like it, great. If you don’t, no worries. But if you get in my face about it, I will tell you to ‘fuck off’ and block you if I have to.

Because there is NO shame or guilt needed in being a creative person. There is NO need to hide out and torture yourself simply because someone thinks you’re a sad-sack loser, or totally misunderstood. If being quiet and out of the spotlight is your thing, then cool. But for me, I’m not feeling that way anymore.

I will not feel shame or guilt over doing something that isn’t wrong, or causing harm such as writing and posting poetry. And I don’t give one single fucking shit if someone says that they didn’t ‘mean’ to try and shut me down because if you’re going to be a mean and cruel asshole, own your fucking shit. Because trust me, I mean every word I say here good and ugly. People have a right to say whatever the fuck they want to, just as people have the right to respond to it in anyway they want to, up to and including ‘fuck off’.

My father used to say, “You don’t have to sit around feeling sad and sorry for yourself all the time. You have the right to be happy.” I’ll add that you don’t have to torture yourself thinking that if you do it then other people won’t because trust me, that won’t stop anyone from coming at you with their mean-ass bullshit if they want to. Don’t turn your pain and anger inside-out mean as my father also used to say and not expect people to push back on that, sometimes hard enough to knock on your ass. Everyone has a breaking point as another old saying goes, and I’ve hit mine repeatedly over the last few years though I refer to it as ‘breaking radio silence’.

I’ve caught poetry as the old Monty Python routine goes. And I’m not letting it go.