Senryu – Anticipation
Do you feel anxious
Do you feel the tension climb
Anticipation
2020©DSCoremans
Villanelle – Anxious
Of course I am anxious.
It’s only natural;
anyone would feel like this.
I felt the morning place a kiss,
while sleep kept me still.
So, of course, I am anxious.
A task fulfilled is thankless
if it is done against your will;
anyone would feel like this.
I manifest but never wish;
for a wish goes often unfulfilled,
and of course, I am anxious.
One shot left; I fear I’ll miss
for talent can’t compete with skill,
anyone would feel like this.
So I stare always into the abyss;
I hold my breath until,
…there is no answer…
Of course I am anxious;
anyone would feel like this.
2020©DSCoremans
Cinquain – Today’s Worries
Worry,
when you need to;
doubt, only if you must.
Live life in hope and happiness
today.
2021©DSCoremans
Author’s Note
I try not to let my anxiety control me because for years it did.
My desire to do things as well as I possibly can, often means that I start things with honourable intentions, but never finish them. This leads to further anxiety as the half completed projects pile up around you, each holding a fraction of your attention and mental energy. Soon it becomes apparent that there is not enough you to do everything and that choosing one thing over the other is a seemingly impossible task. Each of the projects you have started is important to you. So you put things off, start new ‘small’ projects that grow arms and legs and like the many other things you have started, your energy and focus tapers off until it is just another half finished task on an ever longer list of things you want to do.
Wanting to be perfect in an imperfect world is a hard standard to desire, and harder still to live up to.
“Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems”
― Epictetus
I wrote the Villanelle ‘Anxious’ in October 2020 as I was struggling with my anxiety during the first semester of my second year at university. I wanted to do well in my assessments, but the more time and energy I put into my academic work the less time I had to give my family the meaningful support they deserved. Everyday was harder than the one that preceded us and keeping up with the basic tasks was a thankless and futile task.
I returned to academia because I want to provide a better life for myself and my family, but I recognised that the more I tried, the less of me I could give to my family. The war of the selves who wanted seemingly opposite things became gruelling, and even the things I was sure about when I began became contentious doubt stricken concerns.
I considered walking away from university altogether, and giving my family the attention and care that they deserved, but thankfully I had friends to remind me that if I did this I’d lose all that I had struggled to build for myself over the past few year. Writing and studying have become my purpose as well as my pleasure and to lose them now would be to lose myself.
So I continue, to walk the thin line between coping and not coping. Between fulfilling the needs of my family and the needs of myself. Between my desire for a future and life of my own, and the provision for the the present in which I find myself. I don’t know how the journey will go, but I cannot dwell on that which will come to pass, for fear of becoming lost in a future that may never happen.
DSC
23/07/2021
Senryu – Worry
I always worry
about things which could happen
but not what is wrong.
2021©DSCoremans
Recent Poetry from #FoDiByLi
Leave a Reply