ANNIE'S MUSE

Annie’s Blog

May 1, 2015

I began this poetry website nearly two years ago with a personal challenge to write at least one poem every day. For the most part I met that challenge … definitely the first year, but missed a day or so during this past year.

I have just completed the Writer’s Digest April Poem a Day 30 day challenge. I attempted it last year and had internet issues with the site about 10 days into the challenge that were never resolved on the Writer’s Digest end. I enjoy writing to a given prompt because it is indeed a challenge to be creative with something that may not exactly interest you. That is when the art and science of writing hold hands and get creative.

The final poem was the most challenging for me. Challenging not because of the prompt, but because I fought the prompt … fought it for two days until I let the prompt win. My final poem is one of self disclosure. A topic I have finally forced myself to begin writing about after years of denial and trying to not remember. The only way to heal is to face the fear and I have begun doing it through my writing … poetry and short stories. Many of us grew up with a secret that we kept until all the parties involved save the one abused are long dead. That secret is safe to disclose now that the abusers are no longer around to deny what they did to us. So… Day 30 of April’s PAD is just a tiny glimpse of my abuse, the abuse that was never talked about, never shared, that was swallowed into the depths of my being and forgotten… or so I thought. It started creeping out at the most inconvenient times about three years ago. The first time hit me like a ton of bricks and nearly destroyed me. Yet again, I didn’t talk about it with anyone because I was too embarrassed, too humiliated that it had happened to me. The only one I trusted to talked about what had happened suddenly disappeared from my life and I felt another type of abuse … a loss of trust. But … that is another story all together.

I will continue to write about the instances of abuse in my life … yes, more than one and more than one type… all at the hands of people I trusted … even loved. Looking back over my life now that I have few years left than I have lived, I realize that abuse and the abusers shaped who I became … not all of it pretty or positive, but me nonetheless. Regardless, I have been a survivor … a damaged soul, but a survivor who is still working through a multitude of issues caused so many years ago.

Today, I began a new poetry challenge… one of my own creation that will continue for the month of May. I will reveal what that challenge is at the end of the month!

A huge thank you to all my followers who read faithfully and comment beautifully. I write because I must write… it is like breathing. Something I don’t have to explain to my fellow writers regardless of what you write.