Abraham Alexander on ‘There is a tree growing inside me’

Abraham spent their life healing from their trauma. Once they looked at their experiences with tender and loving eyes, they were able to experience unconditional love for all.

What is a core theme of ‘There is a tree growing inside me’, and what called you to write about it?

Suffering and coming to terms with the fact that much of my suffering was self inflicted. I’ve always struggled with my mental health due to an extremely traumatic upbringing and have really tried to find ways to be happy. But whenever I was starting to make progress with myself things it felt like things would somehow get worse. I realized it was because I had developed coping mechanisms for my suffering rather than getting to the root of the problem. If I tried to brute force my way out of depression, I ended up hurting myself even more. So I had to learn to gently befriend the parts of me that I hated and slowly peel back the layers of hurt I had built up over the years to protect myself. By the end of it, I learned that underneath all my suffering was just another person – desperately in need of love – that had been pushed into the shadows because I had told them they weren’t good enough. It was only by accepting the things about myself that I hated, that I was able to let go of my trauma.

What inspires you?

Hope. Hope for a better future. Hope for a peaceful life. Hope that one day we won’t need hope anymore because our dreams will be our reality.

Do you have a favourite poet?

Pablo Neruda, I’m a sucker for a good love poem.

What advice would you give to someone new to poetry?

Forget about the rules and do what feels right.

Why do you write poetry?

Poetry is how I process my feelings. In a lot of my poems, I relate myself to things I observe in nature. I've come to understand that all of my feelings can be compared to the feelings of something else in the world. Both living and nonliving. It makes me have a greater appreciation for everything and helps me feel less alone. Like even if no other person knows what I’m experiencing, I know that there is something out there that is like me. I think being able to connect emotionally to anything in the universe helps me feel like I’m part of something much greater than myself and instead of becoming fearful of my insignificance, I feel liberated by it.

You can read Abraham’s poem here.