Blogging Break?

Hopefully not forever.

While I have enjoyed the challenge of writing and posting something every week and found it helpful to my work, I feel like I may need to slow the posts down a bit. Currently I am working through my summer, about to move house for my second year of uni and trying to finish off work that can hopefully be published or entered into competitions. 

I really do love blogging, and I do intend to continue sharing craft posts and opinion blogs. However it turns out that to enter my short stories and poems into competitions they need to be unpublished and technically if I've posted them to my personal blog they count as published. 

Maybe if I find I have the time and the ideas and the drive to write multiple short pieces a week I will be able to continue posting them on here, but for now I can't promise weekly updates. Sorry to give up so soon on something I do really care about, but I will still be writing, and this is just a little hiccup I need to work around. 

Flat Hunting

I forgot to brush my teeth this morning.
And yesterday.
And probably the day before that but -
I forget what day that was?

Emails come before lunch,
today's house special is a tasty studio.
rich quality - meaning out of my price range.
Tasteful - meaning in the middle of nowhere.
But it has a private garden?

But happily enough I feel like an adult to have
no lunch break - only more work
no money though I spend all my time earning
and no sleep/rest/end in sight of this all consuming life that they told us we should dread.

*** An answer to why I haven't been posting regularly, apologies. But hopefully this stress may be over soon and I can return to writing once again!

Holding Words.

Even -
your temper.
Bite down on your chewed tongue.

It should be easy by now.
Silence is second nature.
Losing is routine.
I am passive to survive.

Whatever I carelessly throw out -
is returned and doubled.

A small grumble,
a snapped retort,
a thoughtless roar.

Soon stretches out into a day of
grey skies and thunder -
dodging the lightning and praying for brief sun.

I am good at holding words.
Rolling them around until they taste right.

I can close my palms around all the ones I want to say -
and squeeze them lightly,
until they are subdued.

I am good at holding words.

Focus.

It was all about perspective.

That was what she convinced herself at least. She wasn't sick if she didn't allow herself to be. Focus outwards, fix other people - and the good that came from that would flow back to her in a rush of self-medicating bliss.

But she slipped occasionally. Became mired down in how she felt, at first to try and fix herself. She would pick apart her brain until she had an answer to why she was that way, but she only became more tangled in the problems, until she resolved to give up on the task.

Focusing inward seemed selfish. A waste of time. Nothing was wrong if she didn't give in to it. Feelings were chemical and could easily be changed given enough determination. Actions were the things she needed to keep control over. So long as she maintained who she had painted herself up to be - she was fine.

Fine. She could be fine if she tried hard. And every so often she would bounce back up, have a really great day. Be happy over small things, be organised, go to sleep excited.

But perhaps she should have focused on herself...

Falling Apart (Part 2)

He works a needle through my skin -
and threads me back together.

Sand pours back into my bones,
grain by grain.
until I remember how to sew a smile.

But my material is stretched and cheap...
and i can't help falling apart around him.

Falling Apart (Part 1)

i am trapped in a bath that's gone cold.

Unwilling to get out,
knowing that i should.
Splashing in sadness i wallow like a creature
that must live here.

Water creeps into my ears until
my mind is treading memories.
It wants to unpick my soggy stitches,
until my material freys and tears apart
and sand leaks out of me until i fall flat.

i want to be alone and unloved and undone.

How Quiet The World Was - Pantoum

Before the dawn I stood,

tracing frost on a window pane.

Chill creeping in through coat sleeves,

how quiet the world was.

Tracing frost on a window pane,

silence unbroken by birds.

How quiet the world was,

when covered with blankets of cloud.

Silence unbroken by birds,

freezing in foreign headlights.

When covered with blankets of cloud,

I waited for life to start.

Freezing in foreign headlights,

surrounded by crisp silence.

I waited for life to start,

and I wondered if I was alone.

Surrounded by crisp silence,

chill creeping in through coat sleeves,

I wondered if I was alone,

when before the dawn I stood.