Self-Ashtualisation

24 Things I’ve Learnt in 24 Years   1)    Be a writer, not an aspiring one. 2)    Being able to think independently is the greatest privilege, treasure and strength of all. 3)    Don’t just trust your intuitions, utilise them. 4)    Losing friends is inevitable and that is OK. You’ll gain new ones. 5)    Meeting old friends whom you’ve not met for a decade isn’t as scary as you’ve imagined. In fact, it feels amazing meeting those awesome people again. 6)    Holding grudges and not letting go of anger, are extremely destructive weapons that might kill and poison you inside out. 7)    Often times, you can choose your feelings and reactions, the way you can choose how you want to live. 8)    Accepting others’ points of view does not make you a conformist. 9)    You are unique just the way you are. You don’t have to try hard and do weird things to be unique. Just be yourself and you’ll not stop shining. 10)                The reason people love you and

I dazzle, I daze, I drug my projects, Make them sink in my saliva so I can float.   Truth or dare? Always dare. Challenges and challengers Always matter, for they can make me dream That my eyes are actually dice, giving Me the aim to hurl them at my potential crushes, I mean crushers.   I don’t aim high because I’ve made myself the highest. How? Easy! I teach those lower than me to stare With downcast eyes, at me, and if they don’t comply, I’ll Threaten to sink them beneath their blind spots. Threatened, They’ll beg for mercy, damning me with customised hymns. ‘If you dare hurt me again, you’ll be damned,’ I terrorise in a sugary tone.   No one dares protest because everyone knows I can Hit my aim right on the blind spot. I’ve cast a Successful spell, for my followers think they love   Me, though I fear they actually fear me, knowing I’ll shove their heads In a sink. Then, using a bar of soap and a toilet brush, I’ll Cleanse

I turned 23 less than two weeks ago and I’d been wanting to attempt writing this article since the week prior to my birthday. However, I didn’t feel ready for it because I feared I wasn’t wise enough. The time I spent making excuses and justifications on why I should not write it, were some of the most painful moments I experienced as a writer. My inner conscience would not stop nagging at me and I found myself unable to focus on other tasks. Thank God a wise friend came to my rescue by persuading me to just write it for myself. The writing experience was truly liberating and it’s always fun to see how far I’d been on my life journey. Whilst most of the lessons I’ve learnt are subjective and personal, I believe that there might be a few that are universal. Who knows? I might make a difference in someone’s life. Just one person and that would be a joyous accomplishment. So, without further ado, here are 23 things I’ve learnt in 23 years: 1) The only effective way to lead is by exam

Faith: A Short Story by Ashley    Gentle Kentish breeze charmed my nostrils with the smells of fish and chips and salmon steaks. The aromas enabled me to savour the quality time with my daughter on St Mildred’s Bay. A beach whose sight welcomed us with open arms, lighting up the face of the world’s greatest artist and painter, the one and only Faith. Claiming that she was the best was not an exaggeration at all. This claim was supported by the founder of Brilliant Bugs Academy for Special Children, Miss Joanna Bugs. In exactly twenty-four hours, my daughter would be taking her first ever one-to-one lesson with Joanna. A reward for the painting contest. Ah… Happy tears struggled out of the clutches of my eyes each time my mind replayed the moment Faith won the contest. I knew that my daughter’s artistic gift would outshine all the others’. So did Joanna, it seemed, as she confided that in all honesty, she did not expect much from all her other students. I broke down when Joanna offe

I attempted another writing exercise from Stephen Fry's brilliant book on poetry The Ode Less Travelled. As highlighted in the title of this entry, I was required to write two syllabic poems on the subjects of rain and hygiene respectively. The first is a syllabic verse with alternating seven and five-syllable lines; the second, two stanzas of verse running 3, 6, 1, 4, 8, 4, 1, 6, 3. First poem: Rain The sky was no longer blue When rain fell, pouring Staining the torchlight within Especially when The thunder shouted, enraged, Like angry mums who Craved cradles of milk. Painful lullabies that cried Turned my blue eyes grey. Raindrops leaked out from both pipes As the threat to fling My childhood into the well Of stale acid rain Was bellowed out by stunted Adults whose hearts were Crashed by lightning at tender years. Second poem: Hygiene Angels with Dirty faeces were the Names We were given By our older cousins when we Forgot, again, To Brush our

I did it! It's not my best attempt, but my mission's accomplished nonetheless! Feeling really optimistic now. I believe that my poetry will only get better as I've made my commitment to keep writing :) Some of you might wonder, 'This doesn't look like a good poem. Why is Ashley posting this?' I don't know. Maybe you might not. But to be honest I feel that I can write a better poem. Nevertheless, I am actually rather proud of myself as I have completed a writing exercise in Stephen Fry's beautiful book on poetry, The Ode Less Travelled. It's a great book. I'd recommend it to anyone who'd like to brush up on their poetry writing. Here were the things I was expected to do in the writing exercise: * Write a poem in forty-five minutes. * Television is the topic specified by Fry. * The poem needs to be written in mixed metre, containing: - Two quatrains of standard, eight-syllable iambic tetrameter. - Two quatrains of alternating iambic te

This post captures my editing process of condensing my 30-line poem into 20 lines :) Original version of the poem: My Sole Soulmate When my dry lips pushed each other away And my brain as dead as the Dead Sea—no, that’s not it— And my brain as dead as the laptop mouse—yes! That’s it— I knew that I was bored to death So I did a Facebook search To track my soulmate down—there, my confession— And guess who and what I found! The girl who shared my live life story! And I wasn’t even kidding yah! Was it true as the so-called— Well, that lame phrase—you know it OK, OK. Was it true as the so-called— Universal truth? This I asked myself and tried to ask her Via telepathy—no, sorry. Via Messenger—now that’s better. Being truthful— And truth is, yeah, we did Sort of Share a live life story. Then again, A sort of is just a sort off. It’s like listening to the evening news Via the Live BBC Radio app Whilst having my breakfast in bed Because she’s not even clos