What’s bad for your heart is good for your art, they say

And it may be true that poetry is either about pain or love,

Finding or losing a beloved one

Thoughts and creativity,

As a tool to convert them into words in a poem,

Find me, not when I am at my absolute worst, never then

They find me when I am feeling a bit down, disheartened, sad

The kind of “there are tears in my eyes” and “I don’t want to face the world today” sad

That’s, that’s when the words find me

And I can let my heart bleed down onto paper

 

But I have never created any art on my worst days,

Not on the days when I feel like the entire world is crushing down on me,

Not on the days filled with so much pain that I can’t breathe

Because in these moments I can’t form a single coherent thought,

Let alone manage to write it down

My heart may be bleeding but I can’t put that pain into fresh words on paper

On the days that I am trapped in my own mind

All language leaves me

So, tell me: is real pain, ocean-deep and suffocating pain good for my art?

I would rather have my art suffer than my heart