A Poem for Half Splits

"I know what it is like to feel split / in two, unsure if I would make it through / the times I felt halfhearted, half dead, / half whole, half split open— " -- from Half Splits by Corie Feiner

The first line of this poem came to me while practicing the yoga pose Half Splits…

I know what it is like to split in two…

Every time I was on my yoga mat stretching out my lower back and hamstrings, I heard the line ruminate in the back of my mind. But I didn’t write it down. My heart wanted to be ready.

Poetry is an act of self-witnessing, of discovery, of welcoming back parts of yourself that had been in exile. It is an act of self-expression, healing, revolt, and deep care.

When I wrote the first draft of this poem, it started to go there, but the core of what my heart wanted to write was cleverly buried beneath metaphors and craft. In short, and I mean this with all due respect to myself, it was vanilla.

My two readers liked it, but when I chatted with Janine Agoglia of Purple Room Yoga telling her that the line that kept coming to me was—

I know what it is like to split in two…

She innocently asked, “Why don’t you start with that line?”

Have you ever had someone ask you one quest…