This Girl Unravelled

Day Eight #PoemADayFeb – Dropping The Ball Again

So that’s actually not the prompt. But I’ve totally dropped the ball with #poemadayfeb the last couple of days, but always knew it was bound to happen here and there throughout the month!

It’s been a busy (see cluttered desk) and tiring (see dark circles under eyes) week, and I’m reminding myself to go gently, gently. In the past I’ve been the worst at being harder on myself than anyone else could ever be; hating on myself for not doing enough, not being enough, falling short, stretching too thin to be all things to all people.

These days, thankfully, I choose to love and honour myself instead. That includes setting boundaries with my time and energy, practicing self-care, and accepting my very human limitations. It means working damn hard to achieve my goals, but remembering this isn’t about performance, or perfectionism, but just showing up and giving it my best, whatever my best looks like today.

In the words of Brenè Brown – “No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough”

For those doing #poemadayfeb with us, write what you can, as you can, and learn to love the process as much as the outcome. I look forward to jumping back in as soon as I can!

Happy weekend x

Day Five #PoemADayFeb – Journey

I was looking for one

not afraid to journey

upon these war-torn

paths of my freedom

but he was never

a man of sure foot

and what I needed

most was a traveller

with heels as blistered

as mine.

Day Five #PoemADayFeb – Journey

Day Four #PoemADayFeb – Inside

I turned my heart inside out;

delicate, handle with care.

(as if you ever read labels)

(as if you ever read me)

Day Four #PoemADayFeb – Inside

Day Three #PoemADayFeb – Beginning

And this is what we’re left with,
but then, we never were complete –
only ever broken halves of a whole;
pages half open, clothes half open,
half-finished wine, half-begun touch.
A goodbye disguised as a tomorrow
we knew was not ours to believe in.
I write stories about leaving lovers,
you, about being left. The ocean still
longs for the shoreline even though
she knows if one thing does not end,
another cannot begin.

Day Three #PoemADayFeb – Beginning

Day Two #PoemADayFeb – Cascade (form)

I have passed this test before;
sable eyes flecked with autumn light.
I will drink of you like morning wine –
foolhardy; yet wise to abandon
before I am found drunk by the night.
For I have passed this test before.
You; found weighed and wanting,
hollowed out promises held behind
sable eyes flecked with autumn light.
I am too knowing to fall for misguided
impression as in my youth, yet still,
I will drink of you like morning wine.

For the cascade poem, a poet takes each line from the first stanza of a poem and makes those the final lines of each stanza afterward. Beyond that, there are no additional rules for rhyming, meter, etc.

Day One #PoemADayFeb – Heat

I held your hand as the forest stilled
and the air grew cold; a silent prophecy,
a prediction not felt but tasted
upon our tongues.
Your thumb drawing circles
on my palm, the callous of your skin
still felt against mine
like a phantom limb gnawing
at the empty hours of my sleep.

There are twenty-three circles
around the fallen branch
of the tree we once named ours.
She has been here longer than we
ever knew how; roots fumble below
damp earth the way we fumbled over
truth, never sure of the way to turn.

I have been thinking of the winter;
how hardened we became as resignation
stole the colour from our eyes.
How we clothed our bodies in husk and
called ourselves weatherproof.
How we have become like Banksia seeds;
hope held tight beneath resin seal,
restless for the heat of a wildfire
to awaken new birth.

#PoemADayFeb Prompts Are Here!

#PoemADayFeb people, here are your prompts!

We’ve put together 30, even though there’s only 28 days in Feb – feel free to write a couple extra, or if you are totally stuck on a prompt swap it over with one of the spare ones.

Some of the prompts are (form)s – this just means it’s a particular style of poetry form as a prompt rather than a subject prompt, and can be easily googled for the structure of those forms.

Don’t forget to use the hashtag if you want to share your poems, otherwise feel free to play along at home if you’d rather not – the point is to get writing and have fun.

So get your creative minds thinking, and we’ll see you here tomorrow, ready to smash out 28 days of poetry!

#PoemADayFeb Is BACK!

Hey! So, this time last year I paired up with fellow poetry peeps Laura Greaves and Paul Kohn to commit ourselves to writing a poem every single day in February – and thus, #poemadayfeb was launched.

Though crazy hard some days to keep up, we had a blast doing it and loved seeing so many others get on board, so have decided to run it again this year!

This isn’t about having to produce perfect work, it isn’t even about having to call yourself a poet, it’s simply about putting pen to paper and writing for the love of it, sparking some creativity and having some fun.

Personally for me, I have a fairly hectic Feb coming up, so I’ll be endeavouring to post a poem here every day but am also realistic enough to know some days this may not happen – again, it’s not about having to do this perfectly, just about jumping in and doing what you can.

Prompts will be posted tomorrow and we kick off on Friday – would love for you to join us, either Facebook or Instagram (or both) all you need to do is follow along with the #poemadayfeb hashtag, and make sure you add it to your posts.

Hope you can join us!

On Australia Day…

I will never forget the past.

I will never disregard the history of those who have suffered the unimaginable.

I will never turn a blind eye and pretend an invasion of the worst kind didn’t happen.

But I was born here, on these soils, too.

I am Australian, too.

And I am damn proud to call myself that, and will not be afraid, or ashamed, to celebrate that today; to be thankful for this land of opportunity, of freedom, of huge skies and vast oceans.

To know my children are held safe and not having to fight just to survive in a war-torn or poverty-stricken climate but can run barefoot on warm sand and swim and laugh and play with sun on their backs and salt on their skin.

To be thankful for everything this country is, and everything it offers.

This doesn’t mean I am trying to erase history, or act like it didn’t matter.

It did matter.

It does matter.

It will always matter.

But I cannot change history either.

I can only move forward.

We can only move forward.

Acknowledging the past.

Healing the past.

Reconciling the past.

But no longer allowing the past to divide us.

May we find the way forward, as one.

Gently, Gently Changing With the Seasons

I’ve been pretty quiet here lately.

I feel like the universe is asking me to do many hard things, challenging me to move away from everything in my life that has kept me from my true self; to cut ties, break cycles, let go of things I once thought I never could.

I feel pulled from the comfortable dwelling places I’ve frequented and propelled into something that feels hard to explain, something I don’t really understand myself. I just know I can no longer stay in these places once so familiar to me.

It’s exhausting work; this metamorphosis, this deep work of the soul. It’s why I haven’t been here much lately; I feel swaddled in the darkness of my cocoon with no idea of the outcome of this transformation but having an inherent understanding that I need to step back from the world at this time and trust this process, honour this process, and give myself the space needed to heal and change and grow without explanation or justification.

So while the rest of the world emerges into the new year with goals and plans and guns blazing, I am choosing to stay true to my own journey; to know I am not dictated by calendars, by clocks, or by society’s definition of timelines and success.

Instead I am allowing myself the permission and grace to surrender to this process; like nature: gently, gently changing with the seasons.