Natasha Kurien
Jul 20, 2017 · 2 min read

Alan,

Thank you for leaving me this lovely response.

“You said this in a post on June 22 and it startled me, because it was so very familiar, so similar to something I was saying in an early paragraph in the book I am finishing.”

I guess there’s a common place where our thoughts intersect. Ask me, and I’d say that it’s always a pleasure to come across someone who shares the same thoughts as me.

Poetry is a wide subject, seldom are there hardcore rules to follow. It’s a vast expanse with an ocean of possibilities to discover and it’s only when you begin to put your thoughts down that a whirlpool of ideas swerve in.

What I love about it though is that it’s open to interpretation. There’s no one telling you that this is how it should be or that this is how you should live or this is what you take from it, because how you envision the words in your head is entirely up to you. It’s an expression and you can take what you want from it.

To this day I know nothing about poetry. I write what comes to mind when and in whatever form that it decides to show up. I’ve often pondered over whether my work qualifies as poetry or not.

Maybe that’s what makes writing the art that it is today. Everything that you pen is yours, 100% original and that’s something that no one can force. There’s a certain honesty that comes of it. These “darlings” you speak of somehow, somewhere hide tiny parts of us which we choose to distribute. Killing them is essentially equates to killing a piece of ourselves which inevitably finds a way to scratch to the surface as you rightly pointed out.

“Live in virtue or die in virtue” — Words to live by! Thank you for taking the time out to share your thoughts with me. It really means a lot to me. I look forward to hearing more from you Alan. :)

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    Natasha Kurien

    Written by

    On the road to self discovery-looking to make peace with the past, present and future. Living to learn and learning to live.