Self-Ashtualisation

First read all the Facebook poetry memes to find out what you want your poem to mean deep down in the dumps of procrastination. Then start writing and before long digressing, because it’s nice to be wholly in touch with your holy avatar, the version of you yet to exist, maybe in a day, or in fact, right after you’ve got this poem about procrastination done and dusted.   Whilst you write, no, start writing, again, summon your ex-muse into your mind, bring the rage on, feel the raw anger and feel free to throw fireballs at her. After all she’s done, she’s not here to tame you into that copycat who is your mere self-parody in hindsight. Feeling too much? I know. Stop thinking of her then. Reprogramme your brain by procrastinating some more. This time pick three poetry collections about friendship breakups to read before you start to write your third line of your procrastination poem instead.   The next step is to philosophise about the validity...

   The day before yesterday, when I was working really hard to focus on drafting my covering letter to the second literary agent on my list, my obsessive thought tightened its grip on me, deftly chaining me to itself. It breathed down my neck, nagged at me to come on and just do what it wanted and glared me in the eye, all at the same time. Its chant for me to start acting on my dream to become a voice over artist sounded like an excited but deadly whisper, so still yet so loud – and before long the draft of that covering letter in front of me seemed entirely drowned out by the incessant mental noise. Indeed, I could not concentrate, at all, even though I did much, much, much more than try.    As I discussed in this post , that ghostly mental chatter was the same one that had made me regret my decision not to intern at a radio station, for years on end. As a highly sensitive person, I had never minded thoughts like it. In fact, we coexisted in a sense, since I’d ...