When

When I’m in the danger zone

I want a way out

I want things to be done

I want to be done

I yearn for blackness to overtake me

Because it has nightly raped me

Of all my spirit, heart and soul

Things get darker, it becomes so dull

I can’t keep being blinded by gloom

I sometimes wish that I would die soon

Emotionally depleted

I’m trying something incredibly counterintuitive right now.

I am suffering in a lot of areas in my life, I am hugely stressed and growing in apathy for almost everything and I am finding it hard to get the get up and go.

I am losing my fight.

So, usually, when under so much tension and uncertainty and sickness, people tell me to rest, take it easy, don’t overthink things, don’t do this and don’t do that and most certainly don’t start anything new – you need to calm down and rest up.

It would be natural to think I am crazy because I am going to do the opposite.

It’s based on an idea by Mel Robbins called “Bluewater”.

She took a glass of water and filled it to the brim and put dirt in the cup, lots of dirt and she mixed it up to show how a person looks when they’re feeling overloaded and stressed out.

She then explained how people then try to deal with each individual problem they have at a time, to try and lessen the load, she did this by demonstrating how people try to spoon out the dirt little by little and over a time, their cup gets emptier and emptier and this emptiness is representing the persons emotional health. 

Over a time, as you’re spooning out the dirt, you are becoming more and more emotionally depleted and burned out and the idea of doing anything becomes so exhausting you just can’t bear to do anything anymore and you lose yourself and you feel that you might never be happy again.

A dangerous situation for anyone!

She said the simplest thing to do at a time like this is to make yourself do something for yourself, something that you think you’d enjoy or if your apathy is so bad, go back to something you once enjoyed – force yourself to have some time in the week to yourself to do it and gradually ease more and more things that you like into your life – make the time to do some self-care and find yourself again!

So she showed what happens when you start adding more water into the dirty cup, it eventually cleans up, not entirely, there will always be a little bit of dirt, but as you add more and more back into your life that you enjoy, that makes you feel like you have some kind of purpose or soul again, your cup is going to get cleaner and cleaner and you will stop feeling so depleted in yourself and you will be stronger and healthier in the long run for it.

I’m trying to force myself right now into going into autopilot and doing some of the things I used to enjoy from the past, whether I am tired or not, whether I feel like it or not, whether I am currently enjoying it or not and no matter how bad the physical pains are in my body – I must do them. 

Because, maybe that’s what I am missing right now?

I’ve been encouraged to take it easy, stop and relax so much over the years that I have come to a virtual stop and any notion of doing anything makes me have this kind of feeling of MEH!

I’ve allowed peoples advice to make me lazy and I don’t like it!

I actually started about a couple of weeks ago.

I started to force myself to read 30 pages of a book again per day, like I used to a year back. 

I am forcing myself to write anything, no matter what it is, whether it intends to be published or not.

I am forcing myself to do some kind of exercise again.

I am practising art at least once every couple of days. 

I am forcing myself to take an interest in thinking about my future again and start planning things and maybe even start thinking about chasing dreams again, because around four years ago I gave them up.

So I am thinking about creating an inspiration or dream board again, I used to be a big fan of those but got out of the habit of it because Paul started pinning his things onto MY board!  He wouldn’t get his own.

I completely forsook any dream because I was convinced I was about to die at any moment!

Along with this I have been trying to remember to do the “High five habit” Mel Robbins also spoke about, but I need more practise with that and I am also trying to remember to count down from five when I am about to go back into a negative habit.

My memory has issues because I have been on survival mode and doing practically nothing with my life for the last eight years, because I have been recovering from bed bound sickness.

I have also had a scare recently.

I know as I am getting older, certain health problems, particularly mental health problems are getting much worse.

I came across a video online purely by accident, I wasn’t looking for anything in particular when I came across a video titled “loneliness is dangerous for your physical health”.

I knew it was dangerous for mental health, but not physical health.

It turns out people who have been isolated or lonely most of their lives have a hugely high risk of developing auto-immunity issues as well as memory loss.  Now that woke me up, because my memory is unreliable and scary at times and I have four different types of auto-immune disease.

Much of the abuse and neglect I had as a child was due to isolation, my mum refusing for me to socialise outside of tight family and friendship circles, even home educating me most of the time!

So I never really had a healthy social life that lasted, it always came in dribs and drabs.

Knowing this and knowing that people who have lived in isolation a lot are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s or dementia before they are 60yrs old, worried me a lot!

They did say though that reversing this can be very quickly done actually and socialising for at least 30 minutes week outside of your home regularly or more can put you back on the right track in not getting that type of dementia, as it’s a specific type apparently.

So there is a lot going on in my life and according to the Bluewater technique there really should be a lot more going on too.

But right now, I am trying to concentrate on solving a mystery in my life and getting my passion for writing back.  Because I haven’t felt passionate about anything for a long time!

Tell a white lie, I have, but then I quickly felt, what’s the point someone will ruin it…

So, yeah, that’s what’s up lately!

Thanks for reading!

How to kill an artist

There is a broken bridge in the creative heavens

Where creators steal other worlds

Make them their own and change things

Make them straight when they ought to be curled

It’s a tragedy to see it

When a creator can’t create

For they need to take another’s work

To put food on their plates

How proud do they feel when they do it?

Does it feed their soul?

I live in doubt of the truth of that

If I may be so bold?

How hungry is the creator who takes another’s art?

How starved and deranged are they? 

If they could eat another’s heart!

For I have seen it happen

The scope of vicious duels

Of two creators in battle

For one who won’t use their tools

And I have seen the tragedies it causes in their lives

As depression rips them soundly, as though they’re stabbed with knives

They can’t live with what they do and they know it’s wrong and bad

But they can’t help it really and that’s what makes it sad

To kill another artist for the want of fame and gold

It pounds reality into me

And makes my blood run cold

A soulless tragedy

In my heart and mind I am many things

Which I’m not you see

Because I only act a little part of me

For people don’t like others who are bright and bold and brave

Who think they are better people

So they seek to berate and scathe

Yet look inside my heart and soul and you will surely see

All the people locked inside, the people who are truly me!

I am an empress and I rule with an iron might

My tongue commands great armies and send enemies into flight

But I am also a bird that flies up high and it is truly free

To sing any song she wishes, who dares to silence me?

I am the wind which blows at you, air both hot and cold

And sweeps you off your feet sometimes and lose my self-control

And like an angel I am mild and meek, I will care with tender love

And often I will mediate for peace just like the blessed dove

I am a monster and I am fierce, you don’t want to bother me

And I shall tickle you with bites, just like a little flea

I am flash and I am loud, yet I am dull and quiet too

I am many people you know and don’t, you really have no clue

For I am hidden within myself, I am ashamed you see

To show you who I really am

And what I could be

Though mostly I am a creator

I make worlds with words and paint

I create people and creatures too and I do so without restraint

I create vast worlds for your mind to explore

And all I wish for you is for you to adore

And live within these worlds of mine within your very mind

And love it with all your heart and inspiration find

So you too can create like me, your own little universe

And write good poems, songs and stories and a little verse

So you can feel important too and like you have a place

And ignore all the haters who try to stop you with disgrace

Because one thing that is true and clear

The arts are important my dear

For without it we inhuman be

And soulless we will live in tragedy

And never more shall we love each little gem we find

For our hearts will be black and cold

Because we’ve lost our mind

Flying bubbles don’t play with knives

I’m a skeleton of my former self

That person don’t exist no more

Dead and gone and wasted

Life’s negativity has bored

A hole into my soul and mind

You can look for the old me

But you won’t find

I am gone and I am someone new

When you see me, you’ll say who are you?

You can’t be who you say you are…

What has happened? 

Where’s the scars?

There are none, because I’m not bothered by you

I have healed them through and through

I am no longer touched by you

You can’t hurt me I’ve come through

I am stronger on the other side

I different your access denied

I am me, in my truest form

And I don’t care if you quip or scorn

Your words are water off my back

You can’t keep me from my track

I will sing my song loud and clear

Till my angels shout and cheer

For you will not like it so

Because you can’t cause me pain and woe

But never mind, I’m sure you’ll live

Meanwhile, I will forgive

But I won’t have you back in my life

Because flying bubbles don’t play with knives

Creative individuals empathise

The worst thing I have ever done was listen to people who told me I should share my ideas or snippets online regarding my story work.

There are just so many thieves and if you are not as fast as them they just steal from you constantly and that is very disheartening.  I suffer from depression as it is without people literally trying to tear pieces out of my soul as well!

Because to me my creative self is my soul, when you steal from me you are tearing my soul apart like some vicious starved demon!

If you don’t empathise with what I am saying here, then you are not a true creator, you are just a creative thief.  If you empathise with what I am saying, then you are a true creator and know exactly what it means to create new content and how much it means to you to be a creative INDIVIDUAL.

I can’t understand people who actively steal from others, they can’t feel fulfilled in themselves – they might have success, they might have money, but they don’t have a soul, do they?

They’ve sold their soul and their individuality if they can do such a thing.

I pity them.

Honestly I do, I pity that they are so ashamed of themselves they don’t want to share their true selves with the world, like I do and like true creatives do.

It’s really sad actually.

This is why, from this point onwards, I will mention my projects by their code names – but I am no longer dropping hints about them at all, other than their genre.  I won’t even talk about the amalgam of influence I got for the story either, as that gives away too much! 

It’s sad to have to do this too, but I can’t have people taking something precious like this away from me all the time…

Thanks for reading!

Within the

Within the eyes of innocence there is true evil

Within the whores dance there is tragedy

Within the echoes of the chapel there is the breath of lies

Within the chasm of the earth the dead spew cries

Within the night the moon dances bright

Within the day the moon hides away

Within my voice there are secrets untold

Within the passionate is a soul so bold

Written 4:10am 7th March 2023

Creative expression plans

I am starting to think about doing some new approaches to my creativity soon, at the moment it will be difficult to do the changes that I want to do, because of the environment I am living in – but I am hoping soon, in the near future things will be different and I will have more freedom to express myself in an environment that I can thrive in.

A place where I am able to write when I need to and my personal time and space is respected, a place where I can do my art without fighting mess and a place where I practise my music without having arguments about overriding a television or making disturbing background noises because someone wants to listen to their laptop gaming noise instead of music.

Most of all, I am looking forward to an environment that is organised and clean most of the time and where nobody slobs about without a care for weeks on end, until mess gets so out of hand everyone moans and chips in finally for half a day, only for three days later it would seem nothing has changed at all.

It would be good to get back into the habit of watching movies again, because doing that here has always been impossible.  Nobody wants a movie on, unless it’s the same old, same old.

As a former movie buff, this has been a hard pill to swallow.

I haven’t kept up to date with the movie industry since I moved here in the early summer of 2009.

I am very behind.

Right after I have written this post, I am going to write something for myself and myself only. 

I am going to write a list of plans for my creative future and I am going to store this on my computer to read at a later date, a date when I am no longer living here in this environment.

I am doing this because I have been prompted to think about it by a book called “Art for happiness” by Val Andrews – they’ve set a task in which I am to think about any new ways I would like to express myself that I haven’t done already and there is quite a few actually and some I want to combine to create what I believe could be a new creative art form.

I have always had an interest in stage plays and the theatre and it is something along those lines.

I’ve composed music in the past, written lyrics and poems, done some amateur dramatics at college, did some private designs for fashion and dreamt up stories, painted pictures and even danced.  I have been known to decoupage and embroider, knit and crochet.  I have also been classically trained in opera as a child and was the main lyricist and singer of a rap/rock band in college, even though I was always more of a jazz, rock and soul singer in my heart.

Jazz and soul are the preferred genres my family and friends like me to sing.

As a child and into my teens I had always had an interest in burlesque but it was aggressively shunned by my mother, yet my paternal grandmother encouraged it as it was something her own mother did in between being a professional ballet and cancan dancer – my grandmother herself was a majorette and was known to do small amateur dramatic theatre work as a volunteer at weekends, usually to entertain for free the elderly visiting from residential homes and she did this along with two of my aunts and sometimes my dad.

My dad stopped going because mum didn’t like him doing it and she didn’t like my aunts encouraging me to think about joining them in their acts too!

They loved my singing, they said that my voice often moved them to tears and several old people in the audience too as I sang no less than twice for them all.

When it appeared I had some kind of talent, mum soon put a stop to my singing lessons too!

Some of the old people who lived in my street knew my mum did this and their hearts went out to me, because they knew I was home-schooled, they knew the house was noisy and didn’t sound very happy and they knew I lived in the garden.  They were sad when they used to hear me sing on my swing in the garden, people could hear me several houses away. 

Some of them tried to guilt trip my mum by telling them she should let me sing again and go back to her music classes, but she wouldn’t have it.

I lost my confidence when I was around ten years old to sing in the garden, when some new children moved into the house at the back of us and started to bully me for it, because it was opera and they felt I wasn’t cool not to mention I was fat and sad and lonely, as they called me.

Those children became the bane of my life from then onwards, as from 3pm until 8pm most days I would be self-conscious about being seen in the garden by them as they’d deliberately throw balls to bounce off my head and mock me by trying to knock me off my swing.  So I tried to keep nearer to the house, this meant that I couldn’t play with my rabbit called Toffee at the time or sit near the pond, because they’d make entertainment of me.

When I was around thirteen mum wanted more control of the garden and to make it family space as the summers were getting hotter and hotter and so because she was bothered by the children too, she put up a 6ft fence all around us.

This meant I felt free to exercise in the garden again without being mocked at any time I liked again.  I loved netball practise and swing ball, I played squash up against the house too and wasn’t self-conscious in practising my judo either.

I still don’t know when I will move out; I know I can’t really finance that yet.  But I am looking forwards to leaving – I’ve always believed this house is the thing that made me ill.

I never felt easy living here, it was like the house is alive and it didn’t welcome me – ever been in a house where you have an innate feeling you’re unwanted?

Paul told me his house is haunted and that since I moved in, within weeks the spirit seemed to have gone.  I promised him I had done nothing to scare it off, but Paul has always felt it was weird how the ghost seemed to have just vanished when I moved in.

Perhaps I made it insecure?

Who knows?

Thanks for reading…

Cruel memory

Shut up and stop causing trouble you said that fateful night

That night you locked me in a room, to succumb to a cruel plight

The mirrors they sucked me in

They took me away from you

I saw my reflection amongst the glass

And I knew it couldn’t be true

Pulled in by the mirrors lies

The mirrors pulled my heart

Tore me away from myself

Tore my soul apart

I am lost in limbo

Trapped by this loveless fate

In agony I yearn for you

But now it’s just too late

You’re not coming to save my soul

You’re not real at all

You are just a dream too me

A memory that is cruel

This poem is based on larger works that I will be finishing the final draft of by the end of this year. A long fantasy saga, I’ve worked on for nearly 25yrs.

Moonlight Sonata

Listening to moonlight sonata fusion in metal and I can’t help but love it more than the original – thing is, I loved the original a lot anyway – but this is just so sweet!

I think this kind of music really speaks to my soul, I prefer a lot of metal fusion from classical music actually.  It’s super cool and it really helps me focus on the modern aspects of my vampire stories.

I listen to a lot of weird stuff when I am writing and Henry doesn’t like a majority of the music I listen to, he gets upset with it, which is why I isolated myself in my bedroom all the time these days so I can do my writing.

I can’t write very well or for prolonged periods without musical stimulation.

Moonlight sonata is one of the few classical pieces I used to be able to play on my keyboard actually; I am worried I have forgotten most of the music I once knew how to play, because Paul won’t spare the space for me to set up my keyboard in the house since 2012.  So I haven’t practised in over ten years. 

Thanks for reading…