Recently, I’ve heard a lot of people mention how poetry writing and such is something only “emo” people do. It’s really stuck in my head and I started wondering if I was also emo. Looking back at my old pieces, maybe I was, to some degree. To be fair, though, it was real depression and the Zoloft only seemed to worsen things at times. Once I got off the pill, things actually started to improve simply because I was able to get a better grasp on life again.

My late teens was spent, most of the time, feeling really depressed and alone. Once I started writing, I wrote a lot of dark pieces in which I discussed no longer wanting to live and all of that happy material. It was repetitive, but it was honest. I felt like crap. What else should I have written? If I wrote something else, I would have been called “fake”. By being honest, I earned an “emo” label, instead. Catch 22 it seems.

My writing has, undoubtedly, changed over the past year, year and a half. I fought through my depression and moved on to other, larger things. Anger is one of the subjects that I continue to write about. Feeling completely pissed off and wanting to smash your fist through the wall is such a powerfu and pure feeling. While depression often leaves you with nothing, or a scattered collection of too many things, anger helps focus the mind. Considering the stage I’m at in life, most of my pieces now get into the anger somehow. Sure, I have a few poems, here and there, that go into relationships with other people in my life, however, my anger is the demon I always come back to. It was a long battle through my depression and I’m insistent on making it through my anger, also.

So, what does this make? Am I emo because I write about feelings and not things? Maybe, but if that’s the label I have to accept in order to be able to do what I love, then so be it. My writing has been a crutch, a friend, a shield and a helping hand. It’s my passion and my joy. Perhaps I’m terrible at it, perhaps I’m not. Nonetheless, I love it. Call me emo, call me ghetto, call me a wigga, call me whatever you want. I’m okay with it now.