Mirror

Everyone has a fear, be it clowns, bugs, or heights,

but mine is in the mirror, staring back at me during the night.

The reason may surprise, though it hurts to say, but

it’s because it reflects all the things I wish would fade away.

My height, my weight, all the flaws I can't ignore,

every glance at it feels like a wound that cuts to the core.

So I avoid the glass, like it’s a plague, a curse.

I dream of being pretty, though I know beauty is more.

I know it’s not skin deep, but I still crave a peace I can’t ignore.

Can you blame me for wishing to see

a version of myself that doesn’t make me want to flee?

People always tell me to love myself, but how can I do that when I hate who I’ve become, who I am?

I’ve tried to find comfort in my reflection, but all I see are cracks, the imperfections.

I try to ignore it all, pretend that I’m okay,

but deep down inside, I’m drowning in the dark sea of doubts and disarray.

So when they tell me to embrace myself,

I wonder how they’d feel if they were in my shoes for even just a day,

if they stared into a mirror and felt the cruelness of a reflection, a weight I bear every single day.

Maybe then they’d understand why it’s so hard to love myself when I’m already broken in so many different ways.

Steer away from the big boys. Not an ocean but a strait or a bay or a sea-arch. Not a mountain range but a peak or a volcano or a cliff or a corrie or a tor. Not an entire river system but a meandering stretch or a waterfall or rapids or pools or ponds or an ox-bow lake. You get it. A specific part and not a great whole (except if it's a great hole - like a crater or an atoll or a sinkhole).

B r i g h t e r D a y s A h e a d | 9

A Prayer

Father, help to know that You hold me in your hands.

When the circumstances don’t change, and I can’t comprehend

Help me to believe that all I do is win with You.

When my plans don’t fall through, that’s when Your work begins.

Help me to see that You are working things out for my good.

Even when I feel lost, and deception puts me in bad mood

Help me to hear, listen and trust Your voice

So, I can escape the surrounding noise.

Help me to remember your grace and faithfulness

Because, Lord, You remain the same even to the faithless.

Help me to walk in Your truth and always seek Your wisdom,

Because, in this world full of darkness, I want to live in Your freedom.

I have a prompt to give I am a Michelin starred chef looking to find ways to be more unique with my menu development and a thought was to have my tasting menus and coursed dinners to be written in the form of a poem but I am no poet the theme of this dinner is a stroll/ walk through the woods if someone can write a poem with this theme while somehow putting a descriptor or two in each section to hint at what the course would contain I would be forever grateful if this is against the rules please let me know I am new here!

“You won’t tell people what you fear any of this says about you”

Write a 13-line poem wherein each line is only 13 words long, and the only rhyming words appear in numerical sequence in each line.

In other words: the first word of the first line rhymes with the second word of the second line, which rhymes with the third word of the third line, and so on until the 13th word of the 13th line. No other words in the poem may rhyme with these 13 words.

Prose poets: Sentences instead of lines.

Bonus Option: Make the poem about bad luck or superstition.

Acceptable Variation: syllables instead of words.

1. Write anything about nothing. (Make it rhyme or not)

2. Write a poem connecting the similarities between the micro and the macro.

3. Write a poem about trying to convince yourself to finally write poem.

(I'm trying to participate more in this sub to encourage and inspire the creativity of poets who linger in the shadows )

In Microsoft word at least; I was able to make two columns, one with a text box that I could invert and flip the text inside it.

Not sure how you would do this written or in another program but it was a very fun exercise!

1. Write a poem or whatever about your day today.

2. Write poem or whatever about what you "wanted to be when you are a grown up"

3. Write a poem or whatever about 2024.

I'm new to the group, so hope I'm doing this right

This variation was a development of a theme by Dorothy Mukherjee many moons ago; now barely recognisable. The original challenge to add an echo suggested by a Professor of English (Poetry.) I love the result and use this device a lot now.

Please show us one of your own verses (or a borrowed one),with an echo added; it is great fun.

LILTING ECHO ROAD TO HARMONY

A road that I will build for you, it grew

upon the dream that warms my heart. Will start

a way for you to walk upon, to swan

and dance among sweet daffodil safe until

virtue holds sway; not vice or ill. So will

goodness upon the World abound. You Found

no wilted bloom or leaf’s decay that may

the mind depress, or maim the spirit. Will merit

a place no life needs run wild-eyed, to hide

behind tall walls so fortified. No pride

of caste of faith, colour or creed; now need

harbour no grudge of consequence; from whence

mercy and love, as brooks do flow so slow

towards the point of innocuous sweet confluence.

In mist, distant beyond clear sight, is right

to where my view is dim and lost, so tossed,

my heart does float away, adrift does shift

my road wanders to left and right as slight

up hill, down dale, the way goes true, for who

amidst the space vacant and wide may stride

way down beside soft babbled brook, where rook

and thrush do drone as flute, baleful, so wailful

it does float away o’er windy wrath the path

of mountain’s track stray from its way, and may

go where spirit is free, to wander, and ponders

now my soul; surreal my memory. In revelry

of silence reigns harmoniously, such jovially

nature’s orchestral tunes, such sounds abound around.

I lie awake and remember your laugh, oh so silent in the dead of night. Why am I remembering when I know you never felt right.

The person who hates me:

It’s happening again It doesn’t seem to come to an end.

My mind is telling me much more than words could ever try to, I feel like I don’t know who I am in a world full of people who pretend that they do.

I feel like my presence irritates my friends, when I tell them about it, they just cant seem to comprehend.

“How could someone hate you, you’re so kind” Little do they know that the someone who hates me, hides.

He hides behind my fake smile whenever I’m with friend and family He comes out whenever it’s night time and I just feel lonely.

I don’t know who I am, who is that person on my screen? I feel sick, like my whole body turns green.

But I can’t let my friends know, Because I’m the one they rely on when they feel so low.

So I’ll put my fake smile on once again and pretend to be fine, So that the person who hates me, isn’t the one my friends see when they’re longing for some help of mine.

There was this really fun exercise where i did a partner poems in middle school. The gist of it is a pair of partners take turns writing lines, kinda like finish the story. What do you guys think about that? (Edited for typo)

My favorite poetry prompt I’ve ever written about is this:

Write from the perspective of the flowers in your front yard

I would love to hear what you guys would write!

Using quotes, sayings, or phrases you have to start the next phrase with the last word of the first phrase

A drop in the hole in the bucket listen careFully loaded poetic license and registration please pass the peas and carrot gold in rule by force the issue at hand n hand it to them peoples republic for which it stands alone star state your name please spay and neuter you pet peeves me off the rocker her world peace on earth to whom it may concern is raised by wolves in sheep’s clothes are optional screening process of elimination chamber of commerce act now and again and again but faster than the speed of light as a feather weight for me myself and I love you are who you’ve been waiting for score and seven years ago in a galaxy far away from my desk chair man of the bored out of my mind over matter of fact of life is like a box of chocolate factory farm E I E I OH what fun it is to ride in a one horse open slay all day after tomorrow never comes the bride of chucky cheese ball of wax on wax off with their heads underwater off a ducks back to square one two many many moons over Miami Beach by the ocean in the drop

It went from loving you to hating you It went from laughing to crying about you Oh, how I never thought you could hurt me But certainly you never cared for me how I sit around waiting for you to come back But you’re still laughing at the fact that I really did love you and yes, maybe I did fight back But all I wanted was apology was that so hard to do? But you know I still waited for you while everyone was hating on you I stood there, defending your name every second of the day And maybe I never got a thank you but I still really cared for you I sat there, hoping that you would text me but you just left me Maybe that was a sign of goodbye But I’ll still wait for you longer then I want too

I read A Streetcar Named Desire in school and the main character resonated with me but she was consider the antagonist and I felt I couldn’t have a conversation with anyone who would empathize with her the way I did so I wrote about it…

They said she was weak because she couldn’t take the world for what it truly was, But I think she was just like me.

She had moth-like way about her because she was written in white and followed the moonlight.

She symbolized a woman of purity, But white stains so easily and she was a woman of many burdens.

She lived a high life with parties and ball gowns, but she had killed a man and retreated to hot water to clean the blood off her hands.

She had a stained innocence.

But she was delicate and refined.

She was cultured in the ways of music and literature, but fell victim to the brutality of man.

And such a pity it was that she lost her sanity.

Had empty bottles on the floor as she sat in bed hugging her knees with wide-eyes and Varsouviana's melody in the background of the city.

Distant words of hatred and disgust followed by a bullet in her lover’s head,

But she was only a young girl.

She was sensitive.

Labeled a manipulative liar who desired men and sex to fill the void that gun had left.

And it was weak of her to create a world of perfection, But she was fragile and she loved magic.

Had a charm that was only 50 percent illusion and believed she could fool any man into a beutiful delusion.

She was decitful but she could use deception in the most graceful of ways. And i think of her every single day.

She was everything I hated and everything I loved. Light and dark, a shadow in reverse, a patch of light in a picture of pure darkness and beauty, she was just like me..

I just sent off a query letter to an agent for my next book. The agent seems right up my alley and will hopefully find the perfect publisher for my book. What kind of book, you ask? A children’s book, a picture book.

This, however is not the important part. The problem I had was finding the perfect rhyme scheme to make it work. “The Lady of Shallot” by Alfred Tynneson wound up the perfect fit and inspired some very nice edits. The greatest part of this was that the rhythm was as bouncy as Tigger from the Whinnie the Pooh books. For a kid’s book, this crucial.

So, what’s the prompt? Write a kid’s book. Make it funny. Give it a lesson. Give a hilariously wrong explanation to something mundane. Whatever. Write it so that you’re fighting the urge to bounce on your butt cheeks while scribbling/clacking away. Go research the kid’s books at your local stores and library.

If you don’t want to share it here because you want to try publishing it for real, check out SCBWI.org if you’re serious. The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illistrators has great resources for publishing your little nuggets of brilliance for the wee ones. If you don’t want to share the story, please at least share the inspiration. Mine’s a ridiculous explanation about the zoomies cats get. Best of luck, you creative scribblers.

And I'm up at 2:36am in the morning and without any pressure these words come to the surface, my mind unable to rest until I do something useful with myself. I feel elated for he loves me. And my hand has connected with a medium to communicate ideas through and I don't chase words the need to write arose on its own. And I know everytime I hear my literature professor talk it is what I was meant to do. If it wasn't written in the stars it is now. And I say I'm falling asleep as I type this you might think I'm distracted but I've never been more focused. And it's priceless that my mind can do this.

I am new to here I haven’t been no where Is this nowhere? I hear it’s where The gold of love is fair.