It Can’t Be Helped | Poetry Breakdown

Hello everyone,

It seems like April showers came early this year. Hope you’re staying dry!

It Can’t Be Helped

I’ve been having so much anxiety lately.
Blood-thirsty craving for a stop,
instead of just pushing through.
I’m a student and I’m not allowed to stop.
If I do, then I’ll fail, causing a larger pause within itself.

Fill me up with medications.
Give me all the holistic remedies.
Lay your hands on me.
Hold me tight and promise to never leave.
Everything eventually fades,
it just can’t be helped.

Spill out onto words,
carry around lists and lists of half-dreams,
incomplete-dreams.
Let the world see your struggles
boldly and truly,
but you’re just a pile of words
constructed together to match and make sense.

Listen to my rhetoric,
feel my moist cheeks.
Understand the word choice,
feel my rapid heart rate.
Hear the rhythm, the steady counting,
feel my non-linear thoughts.

I suffer from your problems
and mine as well.
I carry them on my back, secured with a zip tie.
With each step I take,
I crumble further into the ground.
It can’t be helped.
If I fail, a larger pause will carve a deeper hole.
It can’t be helped.

It’s tough being a student. More or less, things are tough. This poem is about a small push towards hope and perseverance. Usually these more hopeful poems are more dramatic with an introduction of deep failure and then rising up to soar in the skies. There’s nothing wrong with those poems. Sometimes they can be a little unrealistic especially if each day is difficult for you, you might as well celebrate the small things. Good job you got out of bed! Congrats you brushed your teeth! That’s amazing, you went outside! From there, you’d have the courage to do larger things. 🙂

There are a bunch of layers and voices in this poem. I like to look at it like they’re all stacked on top of each other until it fizzles out into, “It can’t be helped.” When you’re hurting there’s always a need to find remedy whether from ingesting something into your body or helping others. This poems mostly focuses on writing with emphasis on releasing the piece and the styles in the piece and how it relates with the overall emotion of the narrator.

In my case, I write to help myself control my emotions, but sometimes when I publish my work, I get a little self-conscious or even the opposite, left out in the open. I learn to deal with my own critic, but I’m an artist, so my work is never good enough especially if it’s a dumping of my emotion.

Anyways, keep pushing through.

Thanks for reading!

Alice

Strong Breeze | Quick Piece Breakdown

Hello everyone,

Hope you’re all doing well. Brace yourself, allergies are on its way!

Strong Breeze

I wrote this piece as an homage to my childhood days where I would spend the entire recess swinging on the swings with my friends to try to get as high as we could. Those were the blissful days even though we didn’t realize it then. You know on a swing set there are differing lengths for the swings? My friend and I would choose the lowest ones to do our “soaring adventures” because we justified it as having more chain to swing on. I still stand by that. Also, there were always too many people on the higher swings.

In this piece, this was actually a similar conversation that my friend and I had. Granted, we were only 7 when we had this conversation and that was what I remembered, but those were pretty memorable times. The reasoning behind the elemental powers was because my friend and I were obsessed with a show called, Naruto. If for some reasons we weren’t on the swings dreaming of scenarios, we would be sprinting Naruto style pretending we were ninjas on a special mission. On the swings that day, I genuinely feel that I was controlling the wind and I remembered feeling so happy. Sometimes I like to whisper to the wind to see if I still have the power and sometimes I do. 😉

On a more serious note, I wanted this piece to be a revisit and exploration of the pure, childhood days. We could run as fast as we could without any worry and our imaginations would take us beyond Earth. We let ourselves drown too quickly when any type of stress comes our way. What if we just let go every once in a while and drop all the stress and societal pressures? Why do we have to try so hard all the time?

When I was little, all I wanted to do was grow up because that’s when people would start taking me seriously. Honey, it isn’t about age when people take you seriously. It’s about how you hold yourself. If you’re going to be regretful of the past and hopeful for the future, where’s that going to take you? So combining that with the blissful past, let’s live in the moment and embrace what the past shaped us to be so that we can be ready as ever for the impending future.

Thanks for reading & I hope you enjoyed.

Alice

Strong Breeze | Quick Piece

We kicked hard on the swings and watched the blue sky drift towards us before retracting again. We pumped hard on the swings and found ourselves soaring high and feeling the wind on our faces. “You see?” I said. “I can control the wind! Every time I go up, the wind starts to blow!” I closed my eyes and I could feel myself getting higher, like I was flying away from the world. “You can be the wind-controller and I’ll control fire.” my friend said as he grinned at me. I laughed as I pumped my legs, pulling the sky closer to me. “Oh yeah? I’m going to tell the wind to blow against you!” My friend started to sway his entire body so that he was practically parallel to the ground. “I’m getting higher than you, beat that!” I rolled my eyes. “Just because your legs are higher, doesn’t mean that you’re going higher! See? My entire swing is higher that you!” We managed to synchronize our movements and we ended up swinging next to each other. “Oh yeah, you’re right. That’s not fair! You can control the wind!” my friend exclaimed. We continued to laugh and swing for the entire recess time. From a distance, a whistle blew signaling the end of recess. I heard my friend’s defeated sigh from my right as I heard him dig his feet into the wood chips, halting him to a sudden stop. I did the same and dug a track into the wood chips, feeling a couple escape into my shoe. I sprinted to meet my class, still feeling the swaying motion rushing through my body. Nothing can stop me now

March for Our Lives | #NeverAgain

When I was in high school, all I worried about was what I was going to do in the future. Nowadays, students have to worry about tomorrow. They have to worry about if they’ll see their best friend tomorrow, if the person they knew will be the same tomorrow or if someone could come in tomorrow and change their lives forever.

Since the latest shooting in Florida, there have been too many to count. Too many students have been killed, too many teachers’ lives have been taken away and too many families whose lives have been changed forever. Each moment carving a poignant moment in the country’s lives driving us to indifference and a constant fear reverberating in our hearts. We would send our most sincere prayers and mourn the lost of another and watch the news go by, telling untold stories and reciting facts until we turn to safer alternatives rather than feeling the constant pain.

Why do they deserve to die? What drove the someone to do such an act? How come there are so many? What is currently being done? What’s going to happen next?

As we cycle through Presidents and seasons of law making, the only obvious answer we’ve been hearing besides the cry of our dead children is the lack of response. Should a student put on their résumé, “survived a mass school shooting”? Should they become parents and fear for their children’s lives even after begging those with power to just do something? 

We’re not asking for much. All we want is to ensure the safety of not only our children, but for our country. Having students walk through metal detectors, carry clear backpacks and learn about guns and the history will help, but it won’t solve anything. Families will continue to become broken, lives will be lost and all there seems fit is to just wait and see what tomorrow brings.

As brave and empowered people #MarchforOurLives through the streets of D.C and cities around the country, let’s remember that #NeverAgain will our children fear for their lives at school. #NeverAgain will another mass school shooting need to happen before our eyes are opened again. #NeverAgain will legislators ignore our plea.

Stay strong.

For More Information:

• March for Our Lives Official Website
• Buy Some Merchandise
• Everytown for Gun Safety Merchandise
• What You Need to Know by Thrillist
• 7 Ways to Support March for Our Lives If You Can’t Be on the Ground
• Sign the Petition
• Everything You Need to Know to Get Involved in Your City by Vogue
• What You Should Know About March for Our Lives by CNN

Donation Sites:

• March for Our Lives Donation Page
• GoFundMe Page

Alice