anxiety – By Sarah

Lift

October 8, 2017October 8, 2017 weejars

Caught in the struggle.
I hold no power in this web.
Creating a swirling storm,
My mind has become a mystery;
Keeping me on the fringe of sanity.
I’m starting to list.
My star is fading.
Oh, to take
charge on this
lonely road.
When will it lift?
Please lift. (Sigh)

Prompt: The Sunday Whirl, Wordle #320
Words: struggle, power, fringe, mystery, list, star, swirl, road, storm, sigh, lift, charge

I Survived!

October 5, 2017 weejars

As the badge says, “I survived A Month Of Mini Writing Challenges, 2017”. Whew! I made it! But more importantly, I wanted to say a huge THANK YOU to the organiser of this event, Sammi Cox. She did an amazing job coming up with some really interesting and varied prompts, collating all the responses into indexes and took the time to read and appreciate participants’ responses. You should definitely check out https://sammiscribbles.wordpress.com/, if you haven’t stumbled upon her site before.

I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge and wrote EVERY single day during September. I loved reading the other participants’ take on things and felt a sense of camaraderie with those who completed the challenge along with me. I have collated all my responses as a new section in my blog menu if you are interested in reading my collection. Overall, A Month Of Mini Writing Challenges was engaging and fun, and definitely something I would do again!

For now though, I am taking a week or so off from blogging and the weekly challenges I usually join in, so that I can regroup and refresh. I think my brain has become a little fatigued and overwhelmed, and I am also struggling again with my anxiety. So a break is most definitely in order!

I’m sure my motivation and inspiration will return, and I will see you all again soon!

Sarah

Free Verse, Poetry by Sarah, Scribblings by Sarah

My Anxious Brain

September 18, 2017September 18, 2017 weejars

My anxious brain plagues me.
Sucking joy from life.
No words of logic can pacify
When it goes off tap and
Swings into panic mode.

There it goes –
The ‘tub-thump’ of my heart.
A spray of adrenalin.
My stomach drops to my knees.
The abject, soul-plummeting terror
Of ruminating thoughts consume me.

I am paralysed with fear.

Oh yes.

Anxiety is a spry being;
Just waiting for opportunity
To take hold once more.

But oh, I wish it would forget.
I wish that it had no memory,
In my being.
I wish to be free from its grasp.

Imagine what that would be like…

Prompt: The Sunday Whirl, Wordle #317, Words: forget, tap, sucks, swings, spray, plague, imagine, tub, word, no, thump, spry

Haibun, Poetry by Sarah

Slipping

September 16, 2017 weejars

A hole has been burrowed into my core, and I have been scooped out. Damaged and broken, I cannot be whole. Surely, my heart will die, in those briefest moments, between dream and reality, when I become aware I am lost, and that I will never be again. Like smoke curling skyward, I slip through my desperately grasping fingers. I clutch at wisps of me, for this is all I have now.

in murky waters
malevolent fingers tear
unseen misery

Image credit Pixabay

Prompt: Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie, Heeding Haiku with Chèvrefeuille, September 13th 2017 – despair

Haibun, Poetry by Sarah

Mid-Sentence

August 5, 2017August 5, 2017 weejars

Image credit Matteo Pugliese

A hypervigilant state grips me. My brain is a flurry of activity; pre-empting, reacting, solving problems flying at me, and solving ones that aren’t. The pace is unrelenting and I yell, Come at me! But I’m too confident, too arrogant – thinking I can handle it. And soon I feel it. My hands don’t work quick enough. I can’t hold on. My feet seem glued to the pavement. I’m unable to take a step. I’m paralysed and going under. Surrounded by white noise, I fight against it. But I’ve turned against myself and I’m crippled mid-sentence.

emerging; gasping;
traitorous body holds back
sinking in quicksand

Author’s Note: Having suffered with anxiety for years, this art work really spoke to me and represented the epitome of a panic attack. I hope I have done justice describing what it feels like to be crippled with these terrible physical symptoms.

Prompt: Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie, Heeding Haiku With Chèvrefeuille, August 2nd 2017 – Man In The Wall

Scribblings by Sarah, Stories by Sarah

Second Opinion

June 21, 2017 weejars

Image credit Geran de Klerk via Unsplash

The doctor looked through the microscope. Shook his head and checked again. He couldn’t be sure but…it really did seem like it was true.

I’d better get a second opinion, he thought.

“Hey Charles, come over here and tell me what you think” he said to his colleague, who was busy working on a rather nasty looking Petri dish.

Charles put his eye hard up against the looking glass and gave a startled cry, confirming what he’d thought. The girl had sunk so deeply into her depression, she’d become an island.

Now, how to connect her back to the mainland…

Prompt: Bikurgurl, 100 Word Wednesday – Week 24
Word count: 100

Scribblings by Sarah, Stories by Sarah

Slipped

May 22, 2017June 4, 2017 weejars

Before I knew it, the rope had slipped from my grasp.

I cursed as I watched it slither beneath the surface of the rippling water. Not again! I thought helplessly. The boat slowly drifted away from the dock. How long til I can get back this time? I wondered.

I was sure I’d fastened it properly. I’d been practising the rope knots, just like they’d shown me. Oh, well. There was nothing to do now but wait.

The boat bobbed rhythmically with the ebb and flow of the tide, lulling me into a light sleep. Five, ten, fifteen minutes passed and when I opened my eyes, I was alarmed to see the distance I’d drifted from the shore. The land was nothing more than a speck. I looked around at the horizon of unrelenting flat blue; my silent companion.

I began to wonder if I’d deliberately unmoored myself.

Losing your mind is like that.

Image by bigjom at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Daily Post prompt: unmoored

Scribblings by Sarah

Protected: The power of a hug

May 21, 2017May 21, 2017 weejars

Free Verse, Poetry by Sarah

The Person in the Mirror ~ Despair

May 15, 2017May 23, 2017 weejars

The Task ‘Well, it is rather simple. #PersonifyME is about personifying an emotion in your mind. If it was a person, what would it look like. The aim here is to visualise a difficult emotion you’ve been struggling with recently and pour that onto a page in pretty much anyway you like. We want to see what your anxiety, depression, happiness, creativity and all these other things look like.’ Source: https://mindfump.com/

Below is my #PersonifyME about despair. Although written a few years ago, this poem fits the brief and feels like it’s been waiting for this opportunity to be voiced…

Who is this person in the mirror that I see?
Surely, that person, cannot be me?
With a tightness to her mouth that was never there before,
A smile barely gracing her lips anymore.
Eyes that do not twinkle or shine with delight,
Instead marked with sorrow at the loss of tiny life.
Sagging shoulders tell of lost faith in all things good,
When bad things happen to those it never should.
The sense of failure and loneliness running deep within,
Cannot be covered up by make-up upon her skin.
Her footsteps falling heavily, she no longer walks light.
Her dreams but a distant memory of only ‘what might’.
New creases and wrinkles have been etched upon her skin,
As a souvenir of the journey, of grief that she is in.
A future being unravelled that was never her chosen path,
Others moved on – her alone in the aftermath.
Bitterness and resentment is the taste left in her mouth,
Anger and jealousy the only words she wants to spout
Each day she wears a mask so that noone sees her pain,
But in her heart she knows she will never be the same.
Thoughts of hope so hard to grasp, no matter how she tries
Happiness so far away, it seems only a lie.
Dark smudges show she’s tired. Resigned to this new fate.
I don’t want to be this person, but I fear that it’s too late.