Tethered to an Island

Tethered to an Island
by Evan Pettit

I sit here on this rock and I put my face in my hands.
I can't bear the light of the sun. The wind is cold at my back.
I watch the tide roll in. I watch it roll back out.
I think of nothing.
I wait for the western sky to darken and fill my eyes with shades of red.
I think of nothing.
I feel the wetness in my hands. I lick them dry. I turn my back to the ocean spray.
I gather thoughts of nothing.
I feed the birds my uneaten bread; I watch them take the air
Right out of my heart.

* * *

Evan Pettit says: I was born and raised near the Everglades and the sea in Miami , FL. I now choose to live amongst the hills and mountains of TN with my boyfriend and a big, fat cat. I've been attempting poetry for about 20 years and am starting to make a fragile shift to short stories. Shel Silverstein has left a permanent imprint on my brain along with Stephen King, and Clive Barker.

I go through cycles of sending my words out into the world, and one day hope to have them altogether in a book-perhaps with illustrations. In my varied, and many rejections over the years were/are always hints of encouragement (it's amazing what a few words can do), and sometimes genuine enjoyment, out of reading something I wrote. My hope is to leave a mark on people no matter how faint. To unlock something there, and add along to it. I also love to take photographs. I enjoy telling stories in any way that I am able to.

Where do you get the ideas for your poems?

I kind of liken my need to write, to a kind of exorcising of certain feelings out of my head, and heart, and gut. Usually once I'm done I feel as though a weight has been lifted, stomach feels more relaxed.. I can go back to something I wrote and, no matter how old it is, I can invoke exactly what my mood and thoughts were at the time. I like to dress/mask/construct them into a speaking picture, or story-if that makes any sense at all.