Sam Alexandra Rose

Tag: writing

  • This is helping

    I didn’t die today.
    What, that’s my inspiration
    for writing poetry today?
    I’m starting to wonder if there’s
    something wrong with me,
    but there’s no gaping hole
    where my optimism should be.
    Everything is intact. 

    Sometimes the kindest thing I can do for myself
    is repeat over and over in my head
    “This is not helping this is not helping this is not helping this is not” 

    When does poetry turn into the demented ramblings of a mad person?

    But this is helping this is helping this is helping this is

    People say life’s too short
    to not have fun
    but it’s also too long
    to not have fun
    so maybe life is the perfect length. 

    When people say “are you okay?”
    what does okay mean anyway?
    Is there one definitive definition?
    Okay is defined as:
    “satisfactory but not especially good”.
    But what I would call satisfactory might
    not be satisfactory for someone else.
    Is my okay your okay?
    If you were me, would you be okay
    or would you be fading and waning
    under the bright light of day?
    Yes, I’m okay, but that doesn’t
    really mean anything, does it?
    Maybe instead we should ask
    “are you good?” because good is
    good, there is no doubt about it.
    And if you’re obviously lying,
    why does nobody ever say
    “I don’t believe you”?
    I might say I’m okay when I’m
    feeling barely satisfactory at all,
    but there is no confusion in good.
    Though I sometimes wonder
    If it sticks around like it used to.

    This is helping this is helping this is helping

  • Bad things and good things

    Further to my last post, this is my attempt at writing something cheerful. It’s kind of happy and unhappy at the same time, but at least it’s some sort of transition, and I’m happy with it. I love being able to be so honest in my writing and share it with whoever comes across it.

    Happiness can come out of bad things,
    you just have to squeeze the bad thing really hard
    and look really carefully at the mess that’s been made.
    It might be hard to find the happiness,
    but if you don’t at least try to look
    then you’ll never have a chance of seeing it at all.

    Since I was given my bad thing I’ve spent a long time
    turning it over in my hands, putting it down,
    picking it back up, staring at it from all angles,
    so now when I look at my good things they look
    even better than they ever have, and I feel extra glad
    that I have them, but at the same time extra scared
    that one day I won’t have them anymore. 

    My appreciation is love, wrapped up in terror,
    wrapped in a heightened sense of the mortality
    of everything and everyone, but essentially
    it’s very warm and soft with a hard, tough centre
    made up of too much knowledge of the world.
    And I say I feel 17 instead of 27, but sometimes
    I feel wise beyond my years in ways I never wanted
    but at the same time am grateful for,
    like I’m grateful for [you].

    Written on Saturday 20th September, 2014 at 23:54

  • Broken Organs

    It’s not enough for words to be true
    it’s not enough for words to evoke empathy –
    they have to poke and prod with their meaning,
    they have to scope out your hollows and fill them,
    first x-raying and identifying your sores
    (search and destroy)
    before deepening – yet at the same time,
    patching up –
    the wounds of your particular
    broken organ. 

    Written on Tuesday 2nd December, 2014 at 22:26

  • Funfair

    They are not all wonderful years,
    but they are years, for sure,
    years that overrule minutes and days, years
    enhanced by whirls and swirls of colour
    induced by Jack and coke, a joke
    or two, puns and double entendres,
    lights residing alongside tunnels,
    stars and stripes and banners and my silly
    ideas, my far-flung dreams, contrasted by
    your grounding foundations so I’m a flag waving
    at the end of a pole instead of a loose cannon
    shooting through the shepherd’s delight,
    uncontrollable like nothing I’ve ever seen
    before – I’m staring back at myself like
    in a hall of mirrors at the funfair. I recognise
    myself but at the same time I really don’t.
    Obstacles aren’t so bad; they at least make us
    pause for breath before continuing on to the
    next year and the next. 

    Written on Friday 28th November, 2014 at 22:15

  • Tell Me

  • Soul-spilling

    I write a poem; type out my thoughts
    one-handed, a glass of bourbon in the
    other. Tap out the title at the top and
    declare the date and time of writing at
    the bottom. An old ritual. Open a new
    document. Write another. Add my time-
    stamp. I write a blog post. Later I decide
    I’m drunk and it isn’t very good, so I edit
    it, still drunk. It’s probably better. I start
    on the Scotch. Write another poem.
    Restart the soul-spilling. 

    The timestamps get later and later.

  • small

    maybe if I make myself
    small enough
    I’ll
          dis
               ap
                   pe
                        a
                            r
                                 .

  • Write what you feel you need to write

    Sitting in hospital waiting for my CT scan today, I wondered to myself whether I write too much about one particular thing. Maybe I should write poetry about something else, because it will get boring writing about the same thing all the time and people will get bored of reading it.

    But considering I don’t even know if anyone is reading anyway, there’s little point in pandering to an imaginary audience! And if I have to force myself to write about something that I’m not really feeling, it’s not going to be fun, it’s just going to be a chore. Writing is difficult enough sometimes without turning it into a chore. (It’s okay to admit it’s difficult to feel motivated to write sometimes, isn’t it? Yes.)

    So scratch that. I think I have to just write what I feel like I need to write. Because writing isn’t just for enjoyment, for developing a craft or for entertaining other people – it’s for self-expression as well. I cant just forbid myself to write about something. So I think I’ll continue to write whatever I want to, until I’ve got everything out of my system and feel like writing about something else. There’s no point in compromising – first and foremost, we should write for ourselves.

  • Cannula

    Cannula:
    Cannulook?
    Not when they put it in
    Not when it pierces the skin
    Not when you know this is just the beginning. 

    Cannula:
    Cannulaugh?
    There must be something funny here.
    But no; affix that blank expression to your face,
    remove all trace of human. No-one must know
    you’re actually feeling something. 

    Cannula:
    Cannuleave?
    Not without getting rid of this
    and even then, you never really leave
    this place, this bed, this mess
    inside your head.

    Cannula:
    Cannulive?
    Not with this,
    not without remembering,
    not without wincing and covering
    the crooks of your elbows
    (was it the crook of the elbow?
    It is hard to remember, my brain is
    trying to protect me that much.
    Not enough.)

    Cannula:
    Cannulament?
    Always, and probably too much. 

    Cannula:
    Cannunot
    give me another cannula, please?

    I had to go for a CT scan today. So, that’s what this was. (Written yesterday in “anticipation”.)

  • Wrestling

    I have grown tired from wrestling with my emotions.
    Why are they so much stronger than me?
    I can’t even win an arm wrestling match.
    I think I’ve grown some new veins,
    I’ve become a bit more blue,
    changed into something new,
    or maybe I’ve turned into a cliché,
    one who drinks and scrawls their troubles away,
    but that notebook isn’t far away enough,
    I don’t know when it got so tough.
    Let go, let go, if I knew how I might,
    but both my fists are clenched far too tight,
    my fingers curled around repetitive notes,
    the same thoughts recurring, the same words I wrote.
    Instead of letting go I keep my fists clenched
    so I can swing for a punch while I’m entrenched
    in this fight with my feelings, because they’re never fatigued.
    The match goes on long after the spectators leave,
    and while the sun goes down on all past events,
    I’m sparring with those whom I love to lament.