Elaina, a RISE Healthy Housing and Support Services Supported Housing resident, shares this dynamic and powerful poem, UNTAMED. Writing and creating poetry is a great way for many people to self-affirm their personal power and creativity. Thank you Elaina for sharing your poems with us.
UNTAMED
You can’t tame a hurricane,
Something crazed, out of control.
Striking fast, leaving nothing the same,
Tearing to shreds what once was whole.It may not have lasted long,
Yet, leaving behind mass destruction.
Here momentarily, then mysteriously gone,
Like a bandit on the run.No clue where it came from,
Never sure exactly where it’s headed
It may take all, or only some,
No one knows ’til it has ended.Not actually mean, yet sometimes vicious.
Just a freakish part of nature.
Not cruel, and not malicious,
Just an unwittingly ruinous wanderer.She’s always called by a different name.
She keeps no set schedule.
The wild beast everyone wants to blame…
She is forceful, moody and unusual.Her need to dominate can be ferocious,
And she is driven to destruction.
With an appetite so voracious
Fueled by damages that can’t be undoneSo, call me what you will,
Say whatever you feel you must
Honestly, I gave you some type of thrill,
Dancing insanely about and kicking up dustNo one will ever own or cage me,
Keep me chained or contained…
The master of my own destiny.
I AM THE HURRICANE.
Elaina has been writing poetry since she was 14. She took advanced literature classes in high school where she learned how to write poems.
Some of her poems were published in a local paper in Vermont where she grew up. In 2013, some of her poems were published in an anthology called Hear Me, See Me: Incarcerated Women Write.
The love of writing poetry has stayed with Elaina throughout her life and she has used it as a coping skill for many years.