This experiment that I have been undertaking in writing a poem everyday for a year seemed like an easy task when I first thought of it but there have been times when it has been a challenge.

Overall I have enjoyed the project and look forward to publishing the fruits of this effort as a fourth volume of poetry called Anno Vitae: MMXXV in 2026.

One of the cool and interesting byproducts of this year’s work so far is that writing a poem a day has been a little like hand cranking one of those old Russian cars to start it (Lada). It took a lot of effort and wasn’t pretty but it got the engine going.

For me that’s a little like what this effort has been. Forcing myself to write a poem a day was a little like hand crank starting my creative brain…it wasn’t pretty and it took effort but often the result was the creative engine started running.

What has resulted has been one of the most prolific years of poetry writing in my life. Note – quantity does not mean quality. I’m not overly fond of many of the efforts, but like an ugly child, it is out in the world now and I am proud of it.

What this means is that in the space of a year Anno Vitae will be a 365 page overly large volume of poetry that has instigated the creation of somewhere between 400-500 other poems.

With this being the case I have decided a fifth volume will follow Anno Vitae at some point and it will be called B-sides: Vol. 5. The concept of B-sides come from the era of musicians releasing music on small 45 rpm records. Each side typically held one song. Even though the point of the 45 was to release a single prospective hit it made sense to utilize both sides of the record and so a song less likely to be popular was added to the “B” side while the song most likely to be a hit was on the A-side.

Ironically I feel like many of my Anno Vitae poems feel like B-sides while the followup poems feel more polished. This is ok, good writing often includes a healthy dose of irony.

Anyhow every good collection deserves a title poem and so here is one for B-sides:

B-sides: Vol. 5

flip over that hit,
turn that well-known sound around
and you’ll find something different,
words never destined for ears;
and so they are naked,
and so they are unfraid,
like a crowd at an orgy
hidden away from prying eyes
being everything they wanted to be
in the absence of judgement
now sent suddenly
into the cold world,
angry at the betrayal,
but curious all the same
as they embrace the moment
in the sudden realization that
there is no life b-sides this one
so let it be lived
fully witnessed.

My most recent poem was more raw than most (understatement?) but it came with a new awareness that had not occurred to me before.

Anyone who has read my blog realizes I might be a bit of an over-sharer. In the past the most polite way someone ever brought this up to me was by telling me I was “too honest.”

I get it. It’s tough to hear these things and not necessarily something a person signs up for when they walk past and say “how’s it going?” or when they stop by the blog for a nice poem about the sunset and get slapped in the face with a screed abut sexual abuse. Perhaps some writing should come with a trigger warning.

Anyhow I wrote a poem earlier entitled receptacle after waking up from a terrible nightmare I didn’t know how to talk about but I knew how to write it.

Having reread the poem a few times now I have come to understand that one of my core beliefs (a phrase I am learning about in an excellent book I am currently reading) is that the best thing I can do when I feel unsafe or threatened is to scream.

This sounds obvious but let me explain. Throughout my childhood I came to learn that if I wanted to feel safe I needed to tell an adult about what was going on in my life. Call the police. Tell a teacher. Scream for help. Be loud and be obvious. Shine a spotlight on ANY negative or harmful activity aimed at me or around me.

Over time I think this, mixed with my lovely Adult Combined ADHD, transformed into the over-sharing Peter we all know and love today. I have this odd instinct to expose every dark thing I perceive in my life as a way of eradicating it like a magnifying lens focusing the sun to eradicate an ant. I do this mostly through writing.

While this may have worked as a child it is not a great coping mechanism as an adult. That’s because not everything that makes me uncomfortable is a threat. Some things are supposed to make us uncomfortable. Exercise for instance. One cannot grow stronger if one employs tactics to avoid and eradicate all moments of discomfort because sometimes it is ok to be uncomfortable. Sometimes the challenges are there to help us grow stronger and not to be yelled away or spotlight into oblivion.

I wish I had understood this about myself sooner. I wish I had listened to the many loving people who tried to gently let me know this. Still – better late than never right?

For now consider the last poem a hopeful bookend in what has been years of trauma dumping. I want to move forward into something more hopeful. Something more nuanced. This is the goal. I will not always succeed but it is a worthy destination to try and find.

ASIDE: Mistakes happen. I will make them. I cannot obliterate the possibility of mistakes. I need to not over-react when I do make them. I need to commit them to memory and remember my goal.

The past is the past. It does its good and its bad and disappears leaving scars and beauty marks. I need to focus more on the present and even consider the future as the promised dawn of a new day. I like this. Sometimes I will forget I wrote this but that’s ok. Let’s focus on trending toward light.