Journal

This reflective free-verse poem contemplates self-doubt, potential, and the endless cycle of striving for an unattainable “ideal.” Through repetition, spacing, and rhythmic pauses, it captures the tension between ambition and acceptance. The piece ultimately resolves in self-compassion—embracing growth over perfection and recognizing that becoming is itself a form of achievement.

This experimental poem captures the relentless rhythm of survival amid climate anxiety and emotional exhaustion. Through cascading structure and repetition, it mirrors waves of despair and persistence. Blending existential reflection with environmental imagery, the piece evokes humanity’s struggle against inevitability—where movement itself becomes both burden and affirmation of life.

Inspired by Edna St. Vincent Millay’s rhythmic freedom and existential depth, I AM reflects on the futility and beauty of artistic creation. Through iambic rhythm, layered rhyme, and classical rhetoric, the poem explores life’s transient purpose and affirms meaning in existence itself—an embrace of the moment, the act, and being.