Poetry is an expression
of emotion –
words specifically chosen,
and Danielle, your self-hate has created
a sense of being broken,
your happiness stolen,
an everyday internal implosion;
a hole you can’t claw out of –
all because you’ve lost your self-love.
The car-
a space to scream:
freedom to express emotions
weighing me down every damn day.
Therapy-
a paid person to talk to:
a judgement free safe space,
faced with a fresh perspective.
Social media-
A chance to forget:
forced you to find something positive;
we share a glimpse to create a narrative.
Journal-
a place to write:
journals don’t judge, paper doesn’t poke
until you break, desperate for happiness.
Words.
We all need a place
where we can use our words
to freely feel our feelings.
In this society where we’re expected
to fake it til we make it,
what happens when you can’t?
Max capacity,
living unhappily
until we deal with it drastically:
a temporary problem
solved with a permanent solution.
I’m sorry
for venting
when you wanted quiet.
I’m sorry
for crying
instead of just being silent.
I’m sorry
for thinking
I had your shoulder to lean on.
I’m sorry
for relying
on the vows we agreed on.
I’m sorry
for asking
you to feel some emotion.
I’m sorry
for hoping
you’d have a solution.
I’ll just go back to keeping to myself
now that I know you don’t want to help.
I’m taking a break from fake –
I mean – Facebook.
It is fake though,
full of smiling faces,
pictures of places people go
to escape what goes on behind the scenes.
We scroll mindlessly every night,
think of how good everyone else has it
while we sit and suffer
because our life sucks in comparison.
A couple in love,
a friend thriving in their career;
we think we want what they have
because we can’t see
the bickering,
the late nights,
the feeling of being alone,
the endless debt,
the texts from another lover,
the fear of losing it all with one mistake.
Social media makes us want
what we can’t have
when in reality,
no one has it in the first place.
We can’t base our feelings
on what we see online.
I’m not going to keep making this mistake.
I’m taking a fucking Facebook break.
Are you doing okay?
What if I’m not?
What if it’s bad?
How much can I say?
It’s a mind game
I always have to play –
do they really want to know
if I’m having a bad day?
There’s nothing they can do for me anyway
because much to my dismay –
no, I’m not doing okay.
When the students weren’t the only ones
taking home new knowledge everyday.
When he brought home a candy bar
from the gas station
even though I said, “nah I’m good.”
When I didn’t rely on others
to validate me, affirm me –
because I knew what I was doing
was my best and it was good enough –
great, even.
When I stopped sabotaging myself,
selling myself short,
stuck on the worst case scenario,
always wondering when it would all fall
apart – as though I was just summoning
those bad vibes to join me in bed
every damn night until they took control
and now –
happiness is just a memory.
stuffed to the basement
with everything else I forgot I needed.
It’s hard for many to admit: you truly do not have control over anything except for yourself. I’ll be honest, this is one thing that has absolutely wrecked me over this last year of my life. I never considered myself to be the Type A control freak. I’m way too introverted to carry that title and position. Most “control freaks” run a situation, refusing to let others take over.
I, rather, let other people run the show while I watch from the sidelines as things fall apart because I knew better but was too afraid to stand up and say anything. What happens when things don’t work out as planned? Someone has to pick up the pieces and fix it. Enter me: the fixer. I have no issues with this role. Never have.
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Well, well, well.
January is definitely not too late to finally tell you how my students fared during National Novel Writing Month in November, right?
Better late than never, right?
Ok ok. The gripping conclusion:
This year, I had a total of 73 students write at least one word during the month. Some wrote stories, some journaled daily, some did other questionable things but I counted it anyway.
Period by period, it broke down to:
| 1st period | 32056 |
| 2nd period | 37850 |
| 5th Period | 36906 |
For a grand total of……
Pop the confetti cannons, sound the horn!
You guys, I was so blown away by what my 7th grade students accomplished in just one month of incorporating daily writing. I’m even more so astonished because roughly 60% of them are still learning at home, joining in through Zoom daily.
I did add in a little bribery to help propel that number into the six figure mark. Obviously, Thanksgiving falls in November, so that meant a full 5 days where I couldn’t force students to write during class time. Recognizing that I would not get to 100k if they didn’t write, I offered up a total of $40 in gift cards. $10 for the most words written in each class period, and one extra $10 to the most words written overall. I had about 10 students write some during the break, but the three who took the gift cards combined for over 10,000 words to add to the total. Those students received a gift card of their choice before we left for the break. 🙂
We were hoping to have a huge party at the end, have students share a paragraph or two, enjoy some snacks and drinks, but some sudden changes in our 7th grade team forced us to change plans. Teaching in 2020-2021: 0 stars/do not recommend.
BUT this gave me hope. I was never prouder entering in final word counts on December 1 and seeing not just the 100k, but just some of the amazing word counts students were able to put up. So many didn’t think they’d write more than 100 words, and were amazed at themself at the end seeing they wrote more than 1,000!
I can’t wait for the opportunity to do this again, perhaps on a bigger scale? But if not, my own classroom is good enough for me.
Cheers!
So often – okay, literally everyday – I find myself making the decision to not do something because I don’t think it’ll work out, I’m not good enough to do it. No one is going to like it anyway, so why bother? I’ll be honest, hitting publish on blog posts many days is a challenge, and a great post will sit in my drafts for months and months because I fear it’s not good enough.
I have a hard time feeling good about anything if I don’t get validation from it. That sounds so bad and typing it was actually harder than writing it in my journal. If I don’t get likes and comments, I should just throw it away so no one knows it bombed. I’m a failure. Why am I doing this?
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The Caffeinated Writer 