help! my baby is almost one and kind of sucks!

(The baby is my book.)

I’ve grappled with this a lot lately, especially today. June 26, 2026 will mark 26th birthday and my earliest published work (done by a magazine called Teen Ink when I was in middle school, I believe) is only getting older.

If you’re a writer or other such creative, having work out in the world feels like having a weird, kinda-sorta baby, one that doesn’t grow and keeps looking at me with milky, old man eyes, the way that some babies do. I love it, but I’m also kind of grossed out by it and a little ashamed to bring it up at parties.

I ran into the advice that you should wait to publish until you’ve really got a handle on your practice a little too late. By the time that even crossed my mind, I was three sheets into the proverbial wind and high on my own supply of submissions.

I decided to get serious about writing—about poetry in particular—when I was sitting in an empty classroom in 2024. Teaching drained me, especially that year. Middle schoolers are rough, especially towards newer, younger educators. My only solace was scribbling in my notebook during the morning announcements or passing periods, little spaces of time that I could cling to when it all felt much too much.

I didn’t think much about editing. Of course, I hardly edited. My main goal was to produce—everything felt like relief and magic, so why would I try to slow down?

Over the course of seven to eight months, I wrote the material that would later become Complete and Total Honesty.

My process should have focused more towards learning what my poetry looked like when I treated it like an actual craft. Instead, I acted more like a baby trying to get themselves grievously injured—meaning I was dedicated. Single-minded. Filled with the recollections of multiple major depressive episodes, three trips to the psych ward, and a medication regimen that could knock out a shetland pony.

That’s about it.

When I had enough to fulfill the poetry manuscript specifications that most indie presses set, I filled my heart with unadulterated hope (and a little too much self-confidence), took the whole packet, and flung it out there. Out. There. It didn’t matter who I was sending it to as long as it got sent.

I was lucky enough that the folks at Neon Origami saw enough in those pages to help me finalize said manuscript so they could put it out there. (I mean it. I was so fortunate to have people who wanted to root for me.)

I can see a lot of good in CTH, if I do say so myself. Looking at the book makes me feel proud. I know put all those poems together by myself and I can hold it and have something that is mine—a firstborn child.

So maybe I don’t relate to as many of the personal ones anymore (I have the psych system to thank for finally getting a “right enough” label pinned down on my brain), but hopefully someone still can. And maybe my poetry right now is better than it was back then, because I have a better understanding of my process and the craft.

I don’t regret Complete and Total Honesty. It’s nice to have as a singular record of what some of my poetry looked like at one point in time and, as I said above, hopefully someone can read it later on and relate.

But if I’m being completely and totally honest with you, I’m not proud of it, either. It’s my tragic, ugly baby. My main problem is I can’t look past the schtick that I could have caught if I’d just let the poems sit for a while.

While I was finishing this book I knew that I would feel this way. I knew I wasn’t done getting better and I still sent it out anyways, mostly because I wanted to chase the potential rush of pride I expected I’d feel when it would get out into the world.

I did feel that pride, but it didn’t last for very long.

Every time I open the book I’m smacked in the face with something that would be an easy catch if I was editing now. Ugly metaphors that don’t make sense. Cliches that drain my life force. Places where I grasped for emotion and got sentimentality instead.

It all mixes to a horrible, sinking feeling that I shouldn’t have published it when I did—actually, I shouldn’t have written them at all… and maybe I should just put the pen down all together and give the world a break.

Most of the time the spiral doesn’t get that bad. Most. But the icky thing is that I’m starting to have that feeling for the work I did between CTH and now. And I know the work I do now will eventually lose its luster, too.

I understand the line “every writer grows to disown their earlier publications” and I’ve memorized the platitudes about how so-and-so thought their first book was awful but went on to get a major award down the road. But aren’t we supposed to graduate from that eventually?

Am I doomed to a life of constantly wanting to adopt a pen name or get major facial surgery so no one sees a poem from two years ago and attributes it to me?

Is being a writer just an endless cycle of looking back and cringing?

Is there no hope in this world for the ugly babies?

I’m serious. Let me know if you have an answer to those questions because I’d like to be proud of my work for longer than a week, please.

Thank you to everyone who has read and responded to Complete and Total Honesty. I promise I’m not evil to my creations (most of the time).

You can find me on my website or on my Instagram/Threads (at)poet.m.anne.avera .