{"id":22951,"date":"2017-11-01T20:45:07","date_gmt":"2017-11-02T01:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidmcelroy.org\/?p=22951"},"modified":"2019-03-31T04:06:10","modified_gmt":"2019-03-31T09:06:10","slug":"painful-longing-can-be-too-powerful-to-express-hearts-anguish-in-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=22951","title":{"rendered":"Painful longing is too powerful to express heart\u2019s anguish in words"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I can’t write poetry. I’ve tried to write it, but my efforts have always been terrible.<\/p>\n

I can’t write music. I love music and I’m deeply moved by its magic — both words and lyrics — but I have no talent for writing songs.<\/p>\n

I tried to write poetry and music when I was young. I even have a few samples of my attempts at verse. They’re awful but even through the awfulness of the bad art, I can feel the anguish of what I was trying to express when my pen wrote the words on paper.<\/p>\n

For most of my life, I’ve felt a deep sense of longing. A sense of need. A panic. A fear. An emptiness that craved filling.<\/p>\n

When I feel that — as I desperately do tonight — I feel an incredible urge to express it. My heart feels as though it’s going to explode in my chest. There’s so much I want to say — to express, to feel, to confess — and words aren’t ever enough.<\/p>\n

I wish I could write poetry. I wish I could write songs. I wish I could sculpt or paint or do some sort of art which brings emotions into clear view in an abstract way.<\/p>\n

But all I have are words. And they don’t seem to be enough.<\/em><\/p>\n

Words seem so inadequate to express the longing of my heart. The anguish of unfulfilled desire.<\/p>\n

Words seem so terribly inadequate — so sterile and unfeeling — to express the terror of being alone inside my skull, screaming for something which every fiber of me wants and needs and craves.<\/p>\n

Great poetry expresses an idea without even saying what’s being said. Music stabs at the heart and makes the listener feel something powerful — in ways that are beyond my understanding.<\/p>\n

I don’t have that luxury. I have only words. I have raging feelings longing to be expressed, but without the right reader, there is nothing worthwhile to say.<\/p>\n

One doesn’t speak of love and longing and desire in the midst of a crowd — or even when one is alone — except out of the powerful need to get the feelings out before they destroy something inside. And without someone to hear, the words are useless and powerless.<\/p>\n

I wish today that I could write music to express what I feel. I wish I could write great poetry to express love and beauty and longing. I wish I could produce such things and send them out into the world with a silent instruction to find the one who should hear them — to whisper such things to her heart.<\/p>\n

But I just have words.<\/em><\/p>\n

I have a powerful longing. I have the anguish of unfulfilled need. I have the pain of intense emotional pressure trying to get out of my heart before it crushes me.<\/p>\n

I see her face. I feel her heart. I know she’s there. But my words are too weak and too ineffective to find her and pierce her heart.<\/p>\n

Words are all I have tonight, but they’re not strong enough to make the music that could win the love for which I’ve longed ever since I knew the name by which to call it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I can’t write poetry. I’ve tried to write it, but my efforts have always been terrible. I can’t write music. I love music and I’m deeply moved by its magic — both words and lyrics — but I have no talent for writing songs. I tried to write poetry and music when I was young. Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22951","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-5Yb","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22951"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28080,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22951\/revisions\/28080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}