2015 April PAD Challenge - Day Six

Today's prompt for the Writer's Digest 2015 Poem A Day Challenge is: A-things-not-as-they-appear poem.

Viral 
 
Your life pops with a Hollywood Sheen
As you live the Instagram Dream
But what you don't see
Is how much careful planning it took
To create that nonchalant I-Don't-Care shot
How your 'natural' beauty cost you more than your self respect
Your best friend who smiles at you so sweetly
Will squeeze you tighter while spreading rumours

You dumb yourself down, giggle and grin
To play this Game of  Photographic Happiness
But without any names to drop
Or exotic locations to tag

All that you would be left with is

Your Self (ie) 


And finally
You would have something
Worth sharing

2015 April PAD Challenge - Day Five

Today's prompt for the Writer's Digest Poem A Day Challenge is: Vegetables

Eat Your Vegetables

I don’t know at what age
That I decided that you were not to be trusted
I don’t know why you make me Squirm
You stare at me
With healthy promises
And warnings from my mother ring in my ears
As I pretend that you aren’t on the menu or on my plate
I’m sorry but veggies? You can keep them
Nobody ever looks ecstatic when eating a salad

2015 April PAD Challenge - Day Four

This is today's poem for the April 2015 Poem A Day Challenge by Writer's Digest.
Today's prompt is Departure.

What Once Was by Amy Kaye

Lost and Broken
You Hypnotised Me
Like A Magnet
Your Sad Story
Pulled Me In
The Loss In Your Eyes
Reached Out
And Enveloped me in your Pain

It was like I was returning
To a familiar place of destruction
All the signs were there
Warning me of the Danger! Danger! Danger!
But I was hooked

Together We dove Deep
Into the grey pools of pain
Like a Blanket
You wrapped me in the comforts of loss

I Held On
Even though your words
Became sharp like shattered glass

You told me that Love wasn’t easy
And I stupidly wanted to believe
This heart break meant something

But the manipulation continued
As you whispered empty lies to me at night

With nothing to cling to
But a tiny voice that once was my beating heart
I left not knowing how I would go on
I left not knowing who I was

And as the last words were said
It was finally over

And slowly I will return to myself like an old friend

2015 April PAD Challenge - Day Three

Today's prompt as part of Writer's Digest 2015 April Poem A Day Challenge is: A Machine Poem

The Thought Machine
Instructions:
1. Open and Turn On Your Mind
2. Insert Daily Gratitude For Optimum Results
3. Check Feeling Centre – Standard Options apply.
4. Choose To Increase Or Decrease Feeling For Desired Effect
5. Your Machine Should Produce in Excess of 60 000 thoughts per day regardless of Feeling Centre.
6. You May Find Yourself Drifting Between Your Thoughts and Feeling Centre, Check Your Settings.
7. Be Aware of coming in contact with External Stimuli in your environment. This Will Greatly Affect Your Thinking Machine as well as your Feeling Centre.
8. If your Feeling Centre gets stuck, check in with your body settings.
9. If Thinking Centre Shuts Down, Reconnect Your Body.
10. Choose the Breathing Function.
11. You May Find That Your Thoughts Will Slow Down – Give Your Thought Machine A Chance To Reboot.
12. Go Back To Step 1.

2015 April PAD Challenge - Day Two - Secret

This poem is part of the 2014 Writer's Digest April PAD Challenge  in which every day of this month there will be a poetry prompt. It's an opportunity for those of you wanting to get your poetry published (although there are no guarantees) and also to have your poetry seen by other poets which is always interesting in terms of feedback. Here's to a month of poetry!

Today's prompt is: Secret

Girl Code

In unison they giggle
And it might as well be High School all over again
Time has moved on but the subject matter is still the same
They squeal in delight at in jokes about pop culture that I don’t find funny
We share the same age and gender but that’s where it ends
I play along with a passive aggressive smile
They have no idea what world I’m from
The never ending small talk
And the constant competition makes me weak
They ooh and aah at the sparkly ring on her finger
Like it’s supposed to mean something
And as they contemplate the right hashtag for their latest selfie
I secretly disappear into the silence
Safely tucked away in my mind,
I can breathe.

2015 April PAD (Poem A Day) Challenge - Day One

After much procrastinating, I'm back. I've been writing in other contexts, just not for my blog. I find it's easier to write for myself in a personal capacity when I have some sort of a structure or goal. I also love creative challenges so therefore I've signed up for the Writer's Digest April PAD Challenge (You can too!) in which every day there will be a poetry prompt. It's an opportunity for those of you wanting to get your poetry published (although there are no guarantees) and also to have your poetry seen by other poets which is always interesting in terms of feedback.

Day One's Prompt: Resistance

As I wait for a sign that isn’t coming
I’ve become an expert in resistance
If I was better I would
If I stopped making excuses then sure
If I could hear my inner voice rather than my inner critic
Just. One. Damn.Time.
Maybe
But I’m not perfect
So the words stay dormant
And I stay stuck
As I watch life
As it passes me by

I'm crying as I write this. It's often those that give the world the most happiness and laughter that are dealing with the greatest sadness. I will forever be grateful to this comedic genius for all the beauty and happiness he brought to the world. For his wonderful stand up comedy and his incredible sensitive portrayals of characters both fictional and real. You will be missed and you were loved by so many. I'm so sad that you ended your life far too soon. I'm so upset that you couldn't feel the love that the world had for you for yourself. 

Thank you for Good Morning Vietnam
Thank you for Dead Poets Society
Thank You For Awakenings
Thank You For The Fisher King
Thank You For Hook
Thank You For Aladdin
Thank You For Mrs Doubtfire
Thank You For Jumanji
Thank You For Jack
Thank You For The Birdcage
Thank You For Good Will Hunting
Thank You For Flubber
Thank You For Deconstructing Harry
Thank You For Fathers' Day
Thank You For Patch Adams
Thank You For What Dreams May Come
Thank You for Bicentennial Man
Thank You For A.I.
Thank You For Insomnia
Thank You For Death To Smoochy
Thank You For One Hour Photo
Thank You For Happy Feet
Thank You For The Butler 

I've been reading some truly insensitive comments online about the fact that Robin Williams took his own life and how he had a long life so therefore they only find it tragic if someone young does so?! I wouldn't normally be so personal online but who knows, maybe this will help someone, somewhere be less cold. It's hard enough dealing with depression and then having the people around you, not understand what you are experiencing makes you feel even more alone. Having battled depression since I was a child and been suicidal myself (about 10 years ago), the darkness that surrounds you on a daily basis for years eventually gets too much. It's not something you can just 'shake off'. It's all consuming. Your thoughts and feelings act against you. All you want is for the constant pain to end. Imagine having the worst day of your life emotionally and then put that on repeat every single day for years. You are alone in your loneliness. You are trapped in your melancholy and can't feel the warmth of those reaching out to you. For anyone who has felt these feelings of hopelessness, this is not a message that is pro-suicidal at all. I'm still here, I'm alive and kicking and so happy to be alive despite the daily tragedies in the world. I found my way back to the light with the support of many others and the desire to keep fighting the darkness.This is merely an attempt to try and express what depression can feel like for those who don't know. I think David Foster Wallace said it far more eloquently: “The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.” If you think even for a second that you might be struggling from depression, tell someone. Tell someone who you know is sensitive or empathetic. Depression tricks you into feeling immense shame and that you are truly alone in the world. You aren't. There are people who love and care about you. There are people who have been through the same things as you and are still here and found happiness. You don't have to suffer alone. There's so much to live for. 

Thank You For the Laughs and the Tears, Robin. You will forever be missed and loved!