Today is my Daughter Freedom's Birthday

Rip me open again, will you?

Let me breathe one more time in synchronicity with you,

my beloved.

I miss your tiny fingers clutching my breast while you fed.

Nails so thin and new, sharp, painful grasps, far from bothered because it was you.

This little light of mine.

She shines,

I,

Mother,

am blind.

With each new awakening, I remember vividly you saying, "Mommy, wake up. Wake up Mommy, it's time to wake up."

Your voice was so mature, I'd never heard you sound like that before, I left you, a baby, next phone conversation you had the voice I heard, mature.

Despite me, you thrive.

You saved my life.

Every day I die a little bit more.

My daughter, how strange still to say.

Still, I say it anyway.

Born on this very day, we waited patiently for you.

You tried to come too soon.

MIdwife says to be with Mommy a bit longer Dear.

Excited to meet you face to face,

I still wait.

Be still they say,

soon she'll be with you.

I miss your laughing face.

Your beauty is beyond me.

I still can't believe you call me Mommy.

Oh, Freedom, beloved blessing, your name says everything.

Be you always.

Mommy Loves you baby.

I've been struggling, in battle, fighting, for you for a decade, holding memories hostage, craving for how we used to be.

No longer 2 or 3, 12 now, wiser than me.

Never stop being you, don't be like me.

Be you always.

Free.

- Warner Bailey

Don't worry anymore. 

I was here the whole time too. 

I saw you even when I didn't want to. I knew you were there, I just didn't want to look at you. 

Thank you. 

I think my love was so overwhelming for myself I resisted the pull. 

I attended the fair and rode the rides before. Like

Fiona said,

"I sleep to dream.", I

live for life itself 

and 

now I'm ready to live with you and you too.

I love.

Me.

You, I thank. 

-Warner Bailey

National Poetry Month - Day 29

And now for our penultimate (optional) prompt! The poet William Wordsworth once said that “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.” For Wordsworth, a poem was the calm after the storm – an opportunity to remember and summon up emotion, but at a time and place that allowed the poet to calmly review, direct and control those feelings. A somewhat similar concept is expressed through the tradition of philosophically-inclined poems explicitly labeled as “meditations,” – like Robert Hass’s “Meditation at Lagunitas,” the charming Frank O’Hara prose poem, “Meditations in an Emergency,” or Charles Baudelaire’s “Meditation.”
Today, I’d like to challenge you to blend these concepts into your own work, by producing a poem that meditates, from a position of tranquility, on an emotion you have felt powerfully. You might try including a dramatic, declarative statement, like Hass’s “All the new thinking is about loss,” or O’Hara’s “It is easy to be beautiful; it is difficult to appear so.” Or, like, Baudelaire, you might try addressing your feeling directly, as if it were a person you could talk to. There are as many approaches to this as there are poets, and poems.
Happy writing!  I get my prompts HERE!

Life Sucks and is so beautiful

Life sucked so bad when all I wanted was a big brother. As an only child, I asked my Mother, begged and pleaded for a big brother. "That's not how that works." I remember her saying. Which ever way she responded each time I asked was the equivalent to "No."

How beautiful life is when I was United with a son my father had with another woman, not my Mother. He's older than me. We've grown to be very close. We get along famously. He is my big brother.

Life sucks and is so beautiful.

Life was beautiful in the beginning. Full of wonder, joy, peace, excitement, newness, comfort, Mommy, home, love, playing, learning, different, new, home, love, more, future, change, same, same home, same Mommy, same love. Striving for a plato of same while every now and then venturing off to new, to always come back to same.

Change.

Along the way I lost the will to wonder, I lost joy, peace, excitement, and comfort. Only newness was the same. I became uncomfortable, Mommy seemed so far away, home was far away until one day there was no home anywhere, anyway. Love felt lost, no more play. Still learning. Rapidly different, always new. No Mommy, no home, no love, no more, seemingly hopeless. Lost. Some unweighed portion of me still striving to come back, to what? I don't know, except the feeling of comfort, Mommy, Home.

Change.

Life sucks, I'm still not awake to be comfortable while Mommy still waits for me to come home.

National Poetry Month - Day 20

And now for our optional prompt! Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that “talks.” What does that mean? Well, take a look at this poem by Diane Seuss. While it isn’t a monologue, it’s largely based in spoken language, interspersed with the speaker/narrator’s own responses and thoughts. Try to write a poem grounded in language as it is spoken – not necessarily the grand, dramatic speech of a monologue or play, but the messy, fractured, slangy way people speak in real life. You might incorporate overheard speech or a turn of phrase you heard once that stood out to you – the idea here is to get away from formally “poetic” speech and into the way language tends to work out loud.

Happy writing!

I get my prompts here!

Bits and Peices of Streets and People

Hey soul sista,

I overheard you say there's a party going on over there.

I almost wore my house slippers to the store, making it impossible to cut a rug. I can rip it up now, my favorite flats used to have thin straps across the top, I broke one then cut the other off, the shoes feel better now. 

I wanna dance to loud music all night long.

He is just a baby but he could feel the tension between Mommy and Daddy. I hope we eat soon, he thought.

Best friends laugh together so loud and hard. Faces red. Bellies aching. The laughter lasted a long time. Both friends have forgotten what was so funny in the first place. They laugh another few minutes anyway.

Laughter is contagious.

The man asking passerbys for money smelled of raw onions, rotten fish, burnt plastic, and Toe jam. He began to laugh too. Belly empty, feet blistered and bloody. Hair matted. Black dirt from head to toe.

What does the beggar have to laugh about?

Laughter was the last sound before falling into a deep sleep.

Nights like this I wish you were here with me to hold me close and discuss religion.

God bless us all.

"Life Sucks and is so Beautiful." - Warner Bailey

National Poetry Month Day 9

Our (optional) prompt for the day asks you to engage in another kind of cross-cultural exercise, as it is inspired by the work of Sei Shonagon, a Japanese writer who lived more than 1000 years ago. She wrote a journal that came to be known as The Pillow Book. In it she recorded daily observations, court gossip, poems, aphorisms, and musings, including lists with titles like “Things That Have Lost Their Power,” “Adorable Things,” and “Things That Make Your Heart Beat Faster.” Today, I’d like to challenge you to write your own Sei Shonagon-style list of “things.” What things? Well, that’s for you to decide!

Happy writing!

I Get My Prompts Here!

Neighborhood Streets and Things I See

Scanning the world around me

The Ugly Beautiful Things

People

Places

Situations

On a side street somewhere in between the hustle and bustle of city boulevards, An old woman, broom in hand, argues heatedly with a young man. Indistinct words exchanged publicly on this little side street for me to see.

Early one Monday morning on the way to work I rode my bicycle for the better part of a mile. On my usual route, there's a hill I don't like to ride up. The hill makes me tired, bones and muscles ache. Sometimes I think it best to surrender to the land and walk this stretch of earth. 

Early one Monday morning on the way to work I made a left turn on to Pierce, I made a left turn on to the same street I always do riding my bike on the way to work.

Early this Monday morning as I made a left turn on to Pierce I noticed a dog running behind me as I pedaled toward the hill I thought better to walk up. I pedaled faster, dog ran faster. Approaching Glen Oaks I was made aware of several other dogs who had joined in on chasing me as I pedaled faster getting closer to the hill, the hill I thought better to walk up.

Dogs barking.

Pedaling.

Faster.

Faster.

Harder.

Chasing me.

Barking and growling,

this started to feel like an attack, not a friendly game between man's best friend and my bicycle and me.

Growing scared.

Frightened.

Confused.

The streets were bare, cars passing occasionally, nobody walking or riding a bicycle like me.

All alone with canine creatures chasing behind me. Barking, growling, running fast enough to catch up to me.

Hill approaching, I felt forced to push and pedal, fighting against gravity.

Tired bones, muscles aching. One dog had grown into many. I feared I would be bitten early on a Monday morning on my way to work by a pack of neighborhood dogs who no longer or never even have seemed friendly.

Make it up the Hill Bailey. Make it up the hill and reach the top where the land becomes flat again and the scary barking, growling, snarling dogs will lose their gain on me and I can once again ride my bicycle to work freely, enjoying the early Monday morning breeze like never before because now I would have survived the most unusual and unexpected attack on an early Monday morning, riding my bicycle on my way to work.

-Warner Bailey

Written to the sounds of John Coltrane and his My Favorite Things

National Poetry Month Day 2

Photo by
jaymantri

Today’s prompt (optional, as always) is based on this poem by Claire Wahmanholm, which transforms the natural world into an unsettled dream-place. One way it does this is by asking questions – literally. The poem not only contains questions, but ends on a question. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that similarly resists closure by ending on a question, inviting the reader to continue the process of reading (and, in some ways, writing) the poem even after the poem ends.

Happy writing!

I get my prompts here!

National Poetry Month Day 1

Hello, everyone! Happy April, and happy first day of National/Global Poetry Writing Month!

(I totally spaced and now I'm 5 days behind. Lol! Classic Warner Bailey.)

If you’re just joining us, Na/GloPoWriMo is an annual challenge in which participants write a poem a day during the month of April. What do you need to do to participate? Just write a poem each day! If you fall behind, try to catch up, but don’t be too hard on yourself – the idea here is to expand your writing practice and engage with new ideas, not to stress yourself out. All too many poets, regardless of their level of experience, get blocked in their writing because they start editing even before they have written anything at all. Let’s leave the editing, criticizing, and stressing out for May and beyond! This month, the idea is just to get something on the page.

If you’ll be posting your efforts to a blog or other website, you can provide us with the link using our “Submit Your Site” form, and it will show up on our “Participants’ Sites” page. But if you’re not going to be posting your work, no worries! It’s not a requirement at all – again, all we’re really trying to do is encourage people to write.

To help with that, we’ll be providing some daily inspiration. Each day, we’ll be featuring a participant, providing you with an optional prompt, and giving you an extra poetry resource. This year, those resources will take the form of poetry-related videos.

And now, without further ado – let’s get to it!

Our first featured participant is Miss Ella’s House of Sleep, whose poem “Annie Edson Taylor’s Birthday Plunge,” used our early-bird prompt to explore a fascinating and little-known historical figure.

Our resource for the day is a short film of January Gill O’Neil reading (and acting out!) her poem “How to Make a Crab Cake.” If you’d like to read the poem itself as you follow along, you can find it here.

For our first (optional) prompt, let’s take our cue from O’Neil’s poem, and write poems that provide the reader with instructions on how to do something. It can be a sort of recipe, like O’Neil’s poem. Or you could try to play on the notorious unreliability of instructional manuals (if you’ve ever tried to put IKEA furniture together, you know what I mean). You could even write a dis-instruction poem, that tells the reader how not to do something. This well-known poem by John Ashbery may provide you with some additional inspiration.

Happy writing!

I get my prompts from here!

---

1+1 Doesn't Always Equal 2

Family.

Family is what you make it.

2 people who never knew each other

Meet.

A union is born and soon after so are children.

Bloods mix.

A line of heritage.

Relations.

Labels are assigned.

Mother, Father, Son, Daughter, Sister, Bother, Cousin, Uncle, Aunt, Greats, and Grands.

A Family, created from scratch, homegrown, stranger turned friend turned Husband and Wife, Parents and Kids.

What makes a family member more important than a friend?

What makes a Family in the first place then?

- Warner Bailey

"Life Sucks and is so Beautiful."

A Poem

New Episode of Way Too Much with Warner Bailey

Have You Ever Harmed Yourself?

I Have.

In this episode of Way Too Much with Warner Bailey, we meet a young woman who calls herself Blade, we later find out why.

A survivor of kidnapping, drug use, and abuse, Blade shares her experiences in different forms of art and discussion.

https://warnerbailey.podbean.com/e/addicts-come-in-all-sizes/

https://warnerbailey.podbean.com/mf/play/p84c2y/Davis_Woods_Girls_With_Addictions_1_.mp3

How Ass is My Behind?

I've got some great titles for a few unfinished pieces, mainly blog posts and business reviews, "Where the Wild Things Are", "The 3rd Year was the Worst", and "Catch Up!" are a few.
As I sit in my van on a side street of Encino, next to the freeway, I welcome the disappearance of the sun and the cool air that comes along with. I just ingested a half of a Xanax, ate a Cup of Noodle mixed with part of a can of Hot Dog Chilli from the Dollar Tree, and am sipping slowly on my famous Big Gulp Cup filled with ice and watered down Coco-Nut-Rita. Chopin plays in the background while the town's people go inside closed doors to rest before Monday arrives and brings a new week of monotony for their poor souls to envelop. Life is kind to me, I am at peace. I continue typing, hoping to excrete something worth reading, hoping not to pass out from the benzodiazepine that will surely take over firstly my feet, then my legs, with the rest of my body following, I wonder which will go limp first, my brain or my fingers.

Prelude in E minor Op. 28 No. 4

It seems to be easier for me to write titles lately than to actually put my heart on the page. I had been on such a roll and then, electricity deficiency, malnourishment, depression, and fear set in. I began writing these epic pieces in my head swearing I would get them down on paper at some point, somehow. I recognized my lack in progress and so with every bit of energy I could muster up I began writing, even if I couldn't finish, I didn't want to lose the thoughts behind what I knew would be extraordinary pieces. I collected names of the people who inspired me. I revealed my identity to the kind souls I would meet. I will connect each puzzle piece to my Prelude.

I now know why this chapter has appeared in my story, the story of me, Warner Bailey. I am a woman who no longer calls herself a girl. I am a woman. I am grown up from my childish past. I have an understanding of life that I had but forgot. I'm remembering now. I am learning how. I am a writer, always have been, always will be. I've been living out these stories. I am living the dream. I have so much wonder and excitement still in me, it's overflowing. I will hover over blank pages and let it all spill. Colorful ink droplets of love, loss, strength, courage, dark, light, hope, and power. Read me, but don't read between my lines please, there lays nothing. My imagination is great. My spirit and soul are both young and old. I possess gifts that only I can give.

If you're still reading and wondering which goes limp first, the brain or the fingers, it's the brain in this case for me. And there go the fingers. I'm struggling to press the last keys.

Tonight I will fall asleep to the sounds of Chopin making love to black and white keys. I will dream of good things and awake to another California morning, I hope to take this feeling of calm with me to tomorrow. We shall see. My wish is that you will join me.

Goodnight you princes and princesses of Maine, you kings and queens of New England.

Chopin - Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2

"Life Sucks and is so Beautiful."-Warner Bailey

Featured: Morning Addition "Purpose"

Good Morning All ☀️!

Happy Day After Birthday to Me 🎂!

Enjoy this perfect day, let's dish about where I've been later 😉

Today's Feature is brought to you by Medium. I love this site/app (not a paid endorsement, just an honest opinion). I literally just became a member right now.

I woke up this morning feeling renewed and motevated. This read by Dan Pedersen helped boost my spirits and captured my sense of rejuvenation.

It's a quick read and I hope you can take it and apply it today, I know I am.

You can find it here:

“Purpose” https://medium.com/personal-growth/purpose-5057a5493907

They

Who is they?
They are the ones who are not me.
They will say that too.
They are the ones who are not you.
They will say you are a fool.
They are the ones who are not us.
They hate us. They hate them.
Who is they?
They are what we are not.
They are not happy, free, justified, joyous, kings, queens.
They are not sad, lonely, tired, in need.
They have names, faces, numbers, fame.
Who gave you life? Not They.
Who hurt you More while you were in pain? They.
Who won't ask? Not They.
Who takes? They.
Who listens? Not They.
Who talks to you, not with you? They.
There's not much to explain, it is simple.
They will always be.
Don't be confused.
They can be anyone.
For Those who ask who They is,
Tell them,
Maybe They is You.
You could never be your worst enemy.
They will be Them
I will be Me
You will be You.
Who is They?
If you have to ask,
You're one of Them or They've got a hold on You.

30/30 Poetry Challenge DAY 12!!! Not a High Coup but a High Bun

My first haibun. Enjoy!

I thought it would be super hard and I was prepared for a struggle. I made a joke to myself that it would end up being one of the easiest poems yet. Is This Real Life? Really??? Oh yes, really, so easy.

I was going to write more. I was going to do the long version, Prose/Haiku/Prose/Haiku, etc.

When I wrote the last line of the Haiku, which had me stumped for a few minutes, I decided to read what I had from the top. Lo and behold, I was impressed. I felt that any more would take away from the impact I received. I wouldn't deprive you of that. 

Our craft resource for the day is an essay by Aimee Nezhukumatathil on writing haibun – a Japanese form that blends prose-based travel writing with haiku.

Today’s (optional) prompt picks up from our craft resource. We’ve challenged you to tackle the haibun in past years, but it’s such a fun one, we couldn’t resist again. Today, we’d like to challenge you specifically to write a haibun that takes in the natural landscape of the place you live. It may be the high sierra, dusty plains, lush rainforest, or a suburbia of tiny, identical houses – but wherever you live, here’s your chance to bring it to life through the charming mix-and-match methodology of haibun.

Recreational Vehicle Home

I didn't want to ever sleep on the bare earth again

Without a home, I thought, at least I'm not alone

After paying for the room with his arm and a leg,

we couldn't afford to stay

She offered me a place, temporarily, I told him I didn't want to go.

when we arrived at the vehicle I said we would not stay for long

A temporary solution to a permanent problem.

The problem is Me

The problem is Him

I left, came back, I was still there.

My home is on wheels

Pour me

A drink makes it disappear

Like outside again.

-Warner Bailey

GROWTH

HI! 💁😌💓 

GOOD NEWS OR NOT SUCH GREAT NEWS FIRST?

HA!....THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT YOU'D PICK... NOT YOU, I KNEW YOU WOULD SAY THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT I THOUGHT. YEAH YOU, YOU KNOW WHO I'M TALKING TO... ANYWAY....

• Not Such Great News First:

• If you're one of my 5 followers, you may have noticed that I have "failed" writing A POEM A DAY FOR 30 DAYS.
• Nextly, I have decided (and taken action) to put my foot down and grace this forsaken land of The Angels NO MORE.
• That's right folks, Warner Bailey is taking this act on the road. 1st Stop? TBA... Hee Hee Hee.

• Great News:
• I HAVEN'T FAILED!!!
• And that ladies and Gents is the best news!
• Not just the fact that I haven't failed. I think a lot of you may already have this knowledge but...

(UPDATE: The above was written by me yesterday. I stopped typing yesterday, to go back to the house I've been working in as a caretaker to relieve the other woman who works there for a few hours on my day off which also, unfortunately, is her day off as well from her night job. I haven't opened my laptop up since. I've been planning to complete this post all night and morning. It's about time to return to that house for work and I won't have the same space to create. No matter anyway because the 2 spaces I create in now are both very challenging for me in their own ways. I shall pick up where I left off now.)

• ...I wish I had finished that sentence because I can't remember what I was going to say, yet, I can still feel the floaty airiness of confidence I had in the fact that I was living without FAILURE or rather the IDEA of FAILURE influencing my decisions, my conversation, my use of space and use of time.

In the past, as in, up to 3 days ago, I would choose to not even begin a project rather than to begin and not complete it.

I would also begin a project if I believed I had enough time, space, and utilities to complete it in a leisurely fashion.

And then there was the route I would take that I like to blame as the culprit of my fear of failure, I would begin a project and if the project wasn't going at least 85%-90% as close to the formula I designed to successfully complete, I would consider the project, the formula for completion, and even the idea for the project or the idea that I could complete it a failed attempt, so I would give up or half-ass my way to a faulty finish. Sometimes I would take this last approach because there was a deadline set by me or someone else that I hadn't met. Sometimes I would self-sabotage before I even got to the deadline because there was no possible way I could perceive making the said deadline.I would like to say here that at some point I started using the term "self-sabotage" but I'd like to take the word self out and say that I sabotaged many opportunities for not only myself but for others. I was affecting other people who know I have the skill, the passion, the experience, and even the drive to create whatever it is I agreed to work on, by not going the distance.

Yesterday, April 6, 2018, I mentally rounded off how many days of the 30/30 Poetry Challenge I had not composed one of my "edge of the seat", Nobel Award deserving pieces of Modern day literary must-have pieces of poetry. Hold on while I fact-check something real quick...

I'm back.

So, I rounded my missed writing days off to about 5 on Friday, April 6, 2018. The last day I wrote a poem dedicated to the 30/30 Poetry Challenge was on Monday, April 2, 2018. That's 3 days of missed writing for that challenge.

In those 3 days, I've written for other platforms, worked my full time job (whereas of today I've worked at for 2 months without pay and received information recently that I will not receive half of the back pay I was promised, and may or may not receive the other half at some point. ATTENTION: THIS IS STRESSFULL.), my van has broken down, my phone fell off of the counter and the screen shattered, while going through a drawn-out break up with my soon to be ex-boyfriend whom I live with, in an unhealthy RV which has been grounded for well over 20 years in the backyard of a married couple I know from AA.

I thought briefly about carving out some time during the day to catch up on the days I missed but quickly dismissed that idea knowing good and damned well that my stress level would skyrocket and I would end up causing more damage than good trying to do something I've not once seen all the way through. I wanted to write the whole writing challenge off as "another failed attempt". I began to sing myself the same ole pathetic song of the pained and suffering Artist who may never live up to my potential due to failing to simply complete one simple project. Possibly the one key challenge I've needed to launch my career to the top and bring all of my life's purpose to a head for all of the world to see and I could finally be given the recognition I've deserved since I wrote my first word in kindergarten. I think the word was "Mommy".

Between various text conversations, food breaks, talking and laughing with my soon to be ex-boyfriend breaks, find the best classical piano playlist to write to breaks, and I'm too tired to do anything but won't take a nap because I have too much to do breaks, it has taken me about 5 hours to get to this juncture. I'm ready to wrap it up now so maybe I can follow this up with an example of my growth to share with you following this post.

Something happened, like other moments I've had the privilege to experience, more than ever in the past few years, a moment I like to call an "Aha Moment". A notion I have been mindful of for the past week or two, that although there is such a thing as failure, it can not apply to one's life. By definition, as I understand it, success and failure can only truly be measured by one's self. In essence, I began to believe that I can not fail in life, which also meant I could not fail at any project or task no matter what the constraints were I strived to uphold. And with that being said I was lead to the realization that many of the rules, guidelines, and limits I believe are required for me to meet in order to achieve successful completion of works was often no, ALWAYS, created, governed, maintained, or abandoned unnecessarily by ME.

Like a clap to a roar these thoughts became new feelings, those feelings led to actions that lead me to the most beautiful proclamation I could make during such a challenging time in my life.

"I can not fail the 30/30 Poetry Challenge."

If you're reading this and justifying that I had already failed the challenge by missing days or if you're out there rooting for me, hoping that I continue the challenge, hoping I find a way to make up the missed poems and finally feel accomplished, then you are exactly who I wrote this for! I'm so happy you found my words simply because you are who I feel comfortable sharing my story with.

My journey has afforded me many lessons that have been uniquely presented to me, for me, by me and the power that I have within me, which is so bright, so strong, so great, that I am learning in small doses how to utilize it moment by moment.

I do not mean to imply that you see what I see, feel what I feel, or agree with my opinions. I just want to share with you and hope to have the pleasure of receiving feedback, starting a conversation, or if nothing else, checking my stats and being honored to see that a part of me has been read by anyone else besides me.

So, since failure is no longer a factor, everything I've written from this paragraph, on, is being typed by me on Sunday, April 9, 2018.

I have read this blog post over a few times and I think that this may be one of the closest pieces of writing I've done here that resembles the vision I had when I started blogging.

In conclusion, I have 2 final pearls I'd like to share with you. The first is that this post WILL be posted even though it's officially my 3rd day of writing it since it's now 1:17 am.

The second will be the next poem I share as I continue to participate in the 30/30 Poetry Challenge. The poem will be the pearl that has grown from my development that no matter how many days I write a poem for the challenge, no matter how many poems I write in April, and no matter if I decide to carry my writings for the challenge into May, June, or 2019, when my last poem is written for the 30/30 Poetry Challenge, then and only then is when I will have completed the challenge, and for that I CAN NOT FAIL at completing the 30/30 Poetry Challenge. I have already claimed my success.

"Life Sucks and is so Beautiful"
- Warner Bailey

Day 2 30/30 Poetry Challenge

I'm in love with the prompt from http://www.napowrimo.net of day 2 of the National Poetry Month 30/30 Challenge (30 Poems in 30 days!?!?!)

Taking a cue from our craft resource, an essay by Katie Rensch on the poetic “I”. we’d like to challenge you to write a poem that plays with voice. For example, you might try writing a stanza that recounts something in the first-person, followed by a stanza recounting the same incident in the second-person, followed by a stanza that treats the incident from a third-person point of view. Or you might try a poem in the form of a dialogue, which necessarily has two “I” speakers, addressing two “you”s. Another way to go is to take an existing poem of yours or someone else’s, and try rewriting it in a different voice. The point is just to play with who is speaking to who and how. Happy writing!

When I first saw you we were young

I thought you couldn’t see me 

Young and dumb

You were the first to make me cry

You were the last before we died

The moment I knew

That moment I shared

I shared it with you

My last moment was our moment

I died alone with you

You looked at me the moment we died the same exact way you did when we were young

I could never look at you like that then

I couldn't look at you at all

Young and dumb

I've hurt you so many times

I wish it were me alone who died

In your arms

Or by my bedside

I said to myself when I first saw you

I want to grow old and die with that one

That one was you

I died alone with that day with you

I was there

The day they met

I was there the day they died

You should have seen the look in their eyes

-Warner Bailey 4/2/18

April 1st Kicks Off The 1st Day of the 30/30 National Poetry Month Challenge

Today, we challenge you to write a poem that is based on a secret shame or a secret pleasure. It could be eating too many cookies or bad movies, or the time you told your sister she could totally brush her teeth with soap. It’s up to you. Happy writing!

A Secret Only I Can Keep

You make me laugh so hard my insides are bursting at the seems.

You asked me to tell you a secret and offered to do the same,

You promised to keep my secret

You promised to feel every ounce of pain,

You promised to keep your promises while you keep my secret pleasures and damning shame.

I don't want your secrets, those are yours to claim.

What makes a secret exactly what it is?

When does the trust end and the honesty begin?

If I told you what it is that I keep locked up, safely inside my heart, soul, spirit, mind,

If I shared the most inner parts of me,

If I released the quiet storm that rests only with me would it still be a secret or would it go by a new name?

How can I believe that you can hold on to my pain when it's not yours to brave?

What makes you think I would betray myself simply because you offered what you say is your own version of pleasure or pain?

I don't know how to play this game,

I am not interested in sharing my pain,

I keep mine and you can do the same.

So I lie and say that you are my pleasure and that I have no shame.

That is my secret, This is my God damn shame,

I lie to keep my secrets resting where they stay.

I lie to keep my honesty safe from pain.

You knew all along that I couldn't fake my shame so your test proved positive and nothing has changed.

We live in lies and secret shames built on top of the secret pleasures we both long for but die to save, never knowing fully what it's like to be free of the shame, pain, and misery we create and keep.

We live in lies and secret pains built on top of the secret pleasures we both long for but die to selfishly save, never knowing even for a second what it's like to be free and indulge in the pleasures of sharing all of ourselves together honestly, infinitely, sincerely as the real you and the real me.

Hush, while I tell you a secret, but once I do I'll disappear, I hope you come too.

-Warner Bailey 4/1/18

If you'd like to participate in this year's Poetry Month 30/30 Challenge (30 Poems in 30 days)
Join me and get prompts from this site:

Worry

I'm gonna freestyle a poem from a quote I just read that I've heard numerous times.

Why worry?

Maybe because the bills won't be paid

Maybe because things can slip my mind if I don't and fall into an ABYSS and since the abyss as I understand is a never ending type of hole which means to me that my thoughts can be slipping into infinity and at some point will come back to me,

Too late.

I worry about that.

Worry, maybe just maybe could very  possibly in some very small/minut way help me.

Why worry?

Why not worry?

Who knows what outcomes could be?

Who knows what will actually happen?

I mean, what will happen if I don't worry, if no-one ever worries again?

Isn't worry care?

I'm worried I have a warped definition of what care really means.

I'm okay, don't worry about me.

Care about me, believe in me, encourage me, 

love me for me whether I'm a prisoner of worry or spirit you see free.

I'm not worried about any of it,

I say, 

be free to worry,

Be free to be worry free.

Why worry?

Because if I didn't I may not be me.

-Warner Bailey 3.31.2018

"One day you'll look back and realize that
you worried too much about things that don't really matter."