Looking Back

I found some old journals of mine that I had forgotten about today. It was interesting to read through them. I used to be a faithful journal writer, and would fill pages and pages with what I supposed to be interesting bits about life. I never wrote my thoughts though, or at least not my emotions. They never filled my pages. Why? I had this wretched fear that if I were to suffer an untimely death, someone would discover my journals and read them, and I couldn't bear the thought of them discovering something uncomplimentary I had written about them, or angry rants I'd had in a fit of frustration over something they said or did. In doing so I pretty much wrote bits and pieces of  the emotionless daily grind of life, experimenting with different writing styles. Reading them, I know exactly which authors I had been reading at the time, as my writing style would be a complete mimic of the authors of the books I had been reading. The journal entries I'd be most embarrassed to have anyone read are the ones from when I had been reading L.M. Montgomery books for the first time. Wow. I can't believe what on earth could have possessed me to use such descriptions as I did. I had decided I should start naming the little places I liked to go sit or be alone in. I shudder to think how I would be teased if anyone saw the names I came up with. There honestly isn't a single poetic bone in my body, and the names I gave things is a living proof of that. I did used to try and write poetry. It was pretty terrible. My belief in what poetry was was something that rhymed . As long as it rhymed and was written in the same format of the poems we read in books, it must be poetry. The thing was, I never knew when I should move onto the next word to rhyme with. I could have 3 stanzas filled with  words that rhymed with each other, but didn't have anything to do with anything I had begun to  write the poem about.
I never even liked reading poetry. There was only one poem I ever really loved. Its been years since I read it, but it was written by an unknown soldier during WWI. the foot note under the poem said that the poem was found on the body of a soldier who had fallen in battle. It was about the war and fighting. The rantings of a young man missing home and wondering what on earth he was doing in those trenches. It really was a touching poem to me. It always stuck with me, and its the only poem I've ever read that really captured my attention. Perhaps its my love of that era. Perhaps it was because it was a story written as a poem. Whatever it was, I'm sure that the young man who wrote it nearly 100 years ago would have never guessed that it would be found and published in a book of poetry to be read by thousands of people, and especially takenk to heart by a young girl of about 13, who did not like poetry.