For me, poetry is a personal thing. I don’t claim to know how to write poetry, it’s just that sometimes that’s the form my words come out when trying to express myself.

I don’t claim to understand most of poetry either. Ask me to interpret a poem and I’ll likely give you a blank stare. I’m not the type who intuitively understands what a poem is trying to convey. One reason may be that I read so quickly. My eyes scan the words, losing all the pauses and nuances the author meant me to feel. I have to consciously slow down my reading, line by line, when I want to read a poem. Even then, reading slowly, I tend to pause and go, “Eh?” and try to reread the poem. It’s rare that I find a poem whose words and imagery really speak to me, and I feel a flash of insight, and a sense of kinship with the author. For suddenly I understand the poem perfectly, and even if I can’t explain it, I *feel* it inside me.

It’s usually poems by Pablo Neruda and some lines by E.E. Cummings that really speak to me.

My unintended hiatus seems to have stretched on quite a bit. I guess I could make the usual excuses about being too busy with work and an offline life. Those are all valid reasons for my lack of updates. But to be honest, there’s another reason — I started to feel a bit uncomfortable about blogging and sort of… watched.

My blog has always been an outlet for my thoughts and ideas and feelings, and it has been a place where I’ve been fairly anonymous. Until now. More people who know me in real life now know about my blog — from those who’ve known me since I started writing to those who’ve only just met me.

It’s weird, knowing people who know you *might* be reading what you’re writing. Somehow it’s more comforting when people who don’t know you personally are the ones visiting. Sometimes it’s easier to be more at ease with strangers because they don’t have any preconceived notions of who you are and how you think. They are less likely to judge you against whatever expectations they have of your behavior. And, they are less likely to be personally affected by anything you might say or write on the site.

So that’s why I’ve been in hibernation mode, sort of. I’ve been blogging in my head, and then finding excuses not to sit down in front of the computer and blog.

But not anymore. People who know me, consider this a disclaimer of sorts of what effect my words might have, on you, or how I relate to you, or whatever. This is my personal blog, it is you who is choosing to read it. Consider yourself warned.