~*~Pervasive Thoughts~*~

Five poems this week! I had to write five poems for class this week alone 😫😫. I know, I know, it’s a poetry workshop class, but last workshop was two a week and certain forms each week. I don’t know how poets who write poems every day do it, honestly. I don’t know if it is because there is too much going on in my head or what, but I do much better with prompts or photos or contests. I find writing very cathartic, so I usually write about painful things so I can get them out, which is exhausting.

For class, I wrote about my father refusing to see me before he died and about my grandfather having dementia and referring to me as Little One because he couldn’t remember my name. Considering he died from sepsis, I’m assuming his dementia was caused by an untreated UTI. He had not been to the doctor in over 40 years, so it took them a while to figure out why he collapsed (he never woke up). Those two poems were very draining.

On top of the four poems for the milestone, we had to write another one for the discussion post, which is a forum mainly for attendance, participation, and accreditation. We had to choose a poem from our reading list and write a poem in their “voice,” which I found weird because I don’t even know what my voice is. I did it, nonetheless, and came up with the following:

~*~Pervasive Thoughts~*~

But don’t you see?  

Once it’s in your head,

it becomes a part of you —

it wraps around your brainstem

and creeps into your DNA.  

Walking the tightrope becomes

less daunting when it’s over 

a perverse safety net of pills,

razor blades, and ropes.  

The passivity of it all creates

a sense of mundanity that leads

you to believe everyone possesses

these thoughts and feelings — 

until you realize you’re the outlier and

most would exist in the extremist

of conditions and call it surviving.

I don’t know how that will go over in such a censored society (from how it used to be — not that we are as censored as other countries), but the professor was cool with including Wanting to Die by Anne Sexton in my reading list, so I am guessing the subject matter will not be a problem.

I doubt my PW2 professor will get back on my good side since I really liked my PW1 professor and PW2 laughed and said that PW1 was very wrong. I am not cool with people talking 💩 about people I like and/or respect. So, possibly a long eight weeks.