Something I wrote in 2013.

This was inspired by Coco.

When I was young, I was very slow as described from my tutors. I didn’t pick up on things as fast as other kids and sometimes I felt bad about that, but I learned to just accept that sometimes, I take a bit of time.

But, there was one thing I wish I did understand before I was 6 years old. When I was 6 I was taken advantage of, not majorly, but I was still taken advantage of, when I thought it would end, I sadly stumbled into another situation where another completely different individual did the same. I found it tough to talk about to my close family, because I shut them off quickly after that.

It took me 10 years to talk about what had happened to me with them and others. I was afraid, sheltered and admittedly began outcasting myself because I was manipulated to believe it was something ‘normal’ when it wasn’t.

When I had finally confessed to my family, my Mother stood at my side through it all and I was grateful to have a woman like her in my life.

I am quite open with what had happened to me solely due to all the years I was not ‘open’. So I promised myself I would work on getting better and to this day, I’ve been getting better. If anything, saying it, does get it off your chest and I think telling someone was mostly the best part for me in the recovery process.

I learned about other’s situations inside and outside of my family and I’ve come to learn and love each and everyone of them for their stories, bravey and honestly, it just melts my heart how we can just see strangers on the street walking past us with happy expressions and we would not know they’ve been through hell.

The reason for the name ‘Mr. Man’ is because it did genuinely take me years to adapt into allowing males to actually go near me, be alone with me and sometimes even just touch me due to the situations I had been through. The name is simply a nod to how most of my harrassers were male and when a genuinely sweet man comes along wanting the best for me, it becomes a pain to have to explain to them why I might not be a 100% comfortable with being alone with them.

This has, however, improved, I now can be alone with certain male individuals and feel safe, this is most likely the biggest step in my recovery since telling someone. I am very happy to have all my friends who support me along the way.

I think the thing that hurts is how I have friends who are male, who do want the best for me and sometimes when getting to know me, they misinterpretate my discomfort as something of their wrongdoing when in reality it never was their fault; It was just a few bad people in the pool of good and they sadly reached to me first.

So this poem does have a quite ‘Deer in the Headlights’ vibe towards it for how some people when they are in vulnerable positions just simply freeze or are lost in confusion to know what is really happening.

I also try to tell my story as much as I can regarding my childhood, because I hope it inspires other young people to tell others their stories of child related issues with either mental health or people being creeps on them. People don’t realise at times how damaging it really can be on someone’s life – but it’s never too late to change those negative feelings, I know so many people who have changed their lives for the better, even after bad people stumble into them.

Never cut yourself short, you are always deserving of any kind of love.

This was inspired by Ballade forms of poetry. It was interesting to try something like this with a distorting feeling towards it, so I do think I worked my way a little outside of the structure for the last paragraph as I felt it was suitable.

This is more or less, a written piece, for my aunt who passed away a few weeks ago, yesterday (17th of May) was her funeral. I was absolutely devastated, but I had the opportunity to stand up and talk about her.

When I did, I started crying and admittedly, my entire family felt the emotion in my voice.

My friends was an interesting write admittedly. If there is something I love the most in life it is my friends. I treasure them so dearly.

When I came across Kennings poetry, I had never attempted it before and it was so fun to just give it a try, I tried my best to revolve the words chosen around my friends and their interests.

‘Day-appetizers’ was the most fun admittedly, I liked the concept it gave; if you had no idea what to do with your day (metaphor for dinner), you could have an appetizer and see where it leads. In other words, I would hang out with my friends and my days would unfold and I never regret a single day with them all.

I am friends with many artists, music-makers and in general, I love being around people of creative tastes. However, I’d have to admit, life would be boring if we only were around those of our interests. I do love the positive vibes this poem radiates, it feels very accurate to how much I adore my friends.

It's inspired by Sonnets and Canzone's structures - just a little more simplified;
It always irritates me, the feeling of being mad, upset or even stressed out but sometimes we feel that way and it's okay,
yet for some reason people always think if you are level-headed it's surreal to see you angry, upset or even weak at all.
Stop seeing people like objects; We're alive not dead.

One thing my family and many others hated about me when I was younger was not that I loved art and wanted to draw, but more or less how unorganised I was; I would throw paper on the floor, practically grab any paper I could find and claim it as my own and it got to a point my family hid paper from me, but it was hilarious because I would always find it.

When you start off with your talents as a child, it’s quite beautiful how they can comfort you. I was very sheltered, not one for talking but I loved drawing for myself and others who would ask. Art always gave me a sense of comfort, it almost felt like days I wouldn’t have anyone around me, I would not be bothered because... I had art.

I also mentioned I loved writing on it, when young I was often given assignments from the school to write in a theme or re-write previous literature, it was insane the types of things I could do as a child regarding stories. I suppose I always had a love for writing, I just never really realised it was there, I just did it.
This poem’s form was Triolet, this quite similar to Limerick that I used in Music Notes for its repetition, but I do think the simplicity of it, does still add to that childish nature I had as a kid.

I had just lost someone I considered a ‘love of my life’, I lost some friends, others started genuinely picking on me. I was livid. I know it wasn’t the friend I had the conflict with in particular, but I envied someone I knew for the worst thing ever.

Not having emotion.

I wanted to limit myself, I wanted to stop feeling because I felt maybe my feelings were the reason why everything tore itself apart (when in reality, it was faults on both sides, including mine).  I discovered a new love, work. I actually adore work to this day, but I know sometimes I do have to restrict myself otherwise it becomes an unhealthy amount.

During this time, my channel started becoming viral (or more or less, it was very active) and in reality it was a lot to handle at a younger age; It’s why whenever I see younger youtubers leave, I can understand why they do.  

One thing that bothered me for years to come was the fact someone a long time ago stated I was always playing ‘Victim’ when in reality that individual barely acknowledged me as a person. So, I actually thought I was in the wrong and tried to stop feeling, everything. It nearly worked.

The saddening thing is how much people can impact insecure individual’s lives. I was severely insecure at this point of time and saying these things left me to believe I was always the problem, even when I wasn’t. So when I started limiting my emotions, it became almost easier to ‘Get over it’.

But I missed it all! I missed being happy at something I liked! Hating something I hated! I loved those emotions, but at one point it genuinely felt impossible to feel most of those emotions. Depression didn’t help either, as much as I hate to say that.

This poem was written to be sent to Hungry Hill Writing for their 'Poets meet Politics' competition; I have wrote three poems for this competition and this is the third one; This poem is simply to say Politics itself isn't something broken, we simply don't always or if relate to the people we have in power. We should never look down on something where we can speak proudly about how we feel or believe in something - but we are also allowed to disagree with statements too.

As obvious as it can be, ‘Pray for Her Girl’ is about my birth. My Father was told to leave at night, while my Mother was in labour. The next day came and they both saw little me!

I wanted to include this into the poem as it felt sentimental and sweet. I see the poem as a basic introduction to my life and the poems up ahead.

The radio is an important factor as my parents named one of my middle names after a song my Father had heard on the radio.

My Mother apparently was so worried about me being potentially hurt at my birth, she didn’t realise when the doctors had came in to discuss my birth, it wasn’t me who was in need of help, it was her.
I thought that it really showed how much my Mother loved me before I was born, anticipating me to come into the world. I know deep down, she always wanted a little girl, so I guess I was what she wanted at the time.
I did try to base this poem on a rather Epic form solely because I loved the storyline layout, it almost has a rather fairytale opening to the poetry book as a whole, I don’t think I’ve ever given Epic an attempt before, but I do think first time, I could do better, but it definitely came out sounding rather loving, which I think I still personally count as a win.