The knock at the door (writing prompt)

Gigi jumped a little as her phone vibrated next to her, rudely waking her from her afternoon nap. The door camera had been activated. As she tapped the app open, a loud booming knock at the door sent her heart rate through the roof. Badger started barking furiously and her watch started vibrating, indicating that her heart rate was too high. “How did someone get in past the estate security guard?” Very few people knew where she lived and no one she knew would ever show up unexpectedly. Gigi froze hoping that if the knockers thought no one was home, they would go away. As she slowly raised her phone to look at camera, a second, even louder, knock startled her again. This time she jerked in fright and dropped the phone. “Fuuuuuuuck”, she voiced in a whisper.

A loud booming voice, like a violent god in thunder mode, shouted, “Police, we are looking for Gigi Dupont.”

Gigi picked her phone back up and saw a middle-aged man and young woman, dressed in plain clothes at the door. Her mind raced. It could be a trap. Often women are used in these kinds of home invasions. Sent in to catch people off guard, because, let’s face it, we trust women more than men.

“You don’t have to shout,” she said irritably into the phone mic, “show me your badges.”

Immediately two badges were held up to the door camera. She took a screenshot. “Names.”

“DI Murray and DS Nelson from the sexual assault unit, Renfrew Street Station.”

She started to get up from the couch asking, “What is this in connection with?”

“We would really prefer to discuss that with you in person”, the young woman said.

Gigi’s mind was racing. She could feel the sweat collecting in her hands.

“You need to tell me what you want”, she said.

The younger detective moved toward the camera and said, in a low soft voice:

“Do you know someone named Kyle Ross?”

Gigi’s blood ran cold. Her head felt like it was filling up with fast-flowing hot water, and her vision blurred. “Breathe, breathe”, she said to herself over and over again.

She knew she had to move toward the door, but she couldn’t.

“Hello, hello, Ms Dupont, are you okay? Hello?” she became acutely aware of the voices calling; an added noise she could not handle right now. She noticed she was hyperventilating. “Just breathe, it’s okay, just breathe.”

“Ms Dupont, Ms Dupont”. Gigi snapped, “Just give me a fucking minute for fucks sake”. She steadied herself, leaning against the wall as a wave of nausea caused her to gag. She forced an awkward smile. She had learned once that it inhibited her gag reflex.  

They were knocking again, and calling “Ms Dupont, Gigi, are you okay? Could you open up?”  The dog was barking, the voices were calling, her head was spinning, her ears were ringing, so she let go and let the darkness come.

Just flow

I know you don’t understand yourself right now.

The empty and hollow feeling

Straining to feel

This is from over-feeling, from being overwhelmed

Too much too fast

You are not built for this

You are built for peace and calm

You are built for gardens and butterflies

You are built for freedom and love

The world is a hard place

Beating you down

With words and hate and people and anger and demands

You are meant to create

To paint

To write

To sing

Alone

You are built to share your art

Send it into the world

To give without critique

To flow without boundaries

This life, sweet girl, is too hard on your soul

A soul made of delicate threads meant only to catch the beauty of things

Find your flow.

The Beast – spoken word

I recently suffered a bout of severe depression, and while the cloud is now lifting somewhat, the depths of it were very dark and wholly engulfing. Writing has been part of my journey whenever my emotions, or lack thereof, go through highs and lows. This was written whilst I was truly on my way to a space where I did not think it would ever start lifting.

Christie Marie · Sound Cloud The Beast

I picked up my pen to start writing again

Writing out my feelings and thoughts hoping I can swim

Through them

There seems to be a little problem though, I am numb

I don’t know how it happened, was it slow was it fast

The biggest question right now is when will it pass

They call it

depression

While a familiar old friend

This time is different, longer, stronger, deeper and I haven’t learned to be afraid of it the same way I fear – psychosis…

Usually, I’m happy, angry, anxious and manic, buzzing, spinning and I dive into my feels like they’re cold pools on a heat stroke day

And… in between I’m pretty sane, even.

So why, how?

When did the downward slide through this thick life mud start

Am I at the bottom and the only way is up now, or does it go deeper

Will it swallow me?

I’m fighting to climb, but this is proving harder than I thought  

It’s like a dark cold beast clawing at my heart, scarring me with nothingness

And I want to panic, but I’m tired.

I remind myself to brush my teeth, with a note next to my bed

And the crowds scream “just exercise”

But just getting up is like trying to rise from a giant piece of chewed bubble gum that is stuck to me head to toe. Pulling me back down

Exercise huh

I brushed my teeth really fast, does that count?

And people, everywhere. Well-meaning

I hope they are

They just don’t get it

So, I have to push to meet their expectations of normality, despite me saying

“Hey I’m drowning”.

They throw around platitudes and you’ll be okays and then ask me for things I can’t do and expect things from me I cannot give and

Then dare to ask “what is wrong with you?”

And then there are the whispers here and there of me and my fight as though I’m fodder for gossip and their judgement is despite them saying, #mentalhealthmatters

Those whispers and words they flow back to and through me and I question myself and my understanding of “friends” and “support”

So I retreat even more behind four walls

Fighting beasts on my own

There is a war in my home

me with myself

and I’m tired.

Scene unseen

Bubble people walk and talk
While waving around a golden fork.
Saunter round a living crime scene
Reality rosy, truth unseen.
They all wave the freedom flag
They took out from a six meal bag.
Worried about their aging skins
Making their bodies look like pins.

Pain lying on the stone concrete
Photo op for trendy tweet.
Picture perfect act of good
Ignoring true sisterhood.
Swat away a desperate stare
“accept that life is just unfair”.
They have their coffee well and good
Smile in a place where death has stood.

Street Dreams

Where dreams dissolve ‘neath streetlights’ glare,

A churning, concrete night’s affair.

A tapestry of shadows deep,

Where neon lights, a secret keep.

Hidden wounds time can’t erase,

The light exposes jaded face,

With wearied hands and calloused skin,

Sadness numbs the soul within.

These are hidden lives untold,

No hopes and dreams left to unfold.

Left to yearn,

In anxious sleep

For life

Beyond a dirt-lined street.

An Untitled Life (WIP)

Charlie slammed her palms down on the table, hissing with frustration. No words. None. A blank page. She missed those years of extreme emotional turmoil, crazy in love, shattered in heartbreak. Oh, how the words were a waterfall she was trying to catch in a glass. Now. Nothing. Like the page. “Life. Is this what it does to everyone?”, she asked aloud to a barely surviving fern on her desk. She plomped herself onto the edge of her bed, looking around at nothing, then gazed at a spot on the wall. She was tired. Tired of the nothingness. This empty bubble of air she lived in. How is a writer supposed to write with nothing inside of them? Could she write about nothingness? She let out a giant “aarrgghhhh” as she got up, steadying herself, like a tight ropewalker, through a mild head rush.

All the prompts in the world were not going to help Charlotte with her writer’s block. She had a lot to say, she always had. Somehow, over the last few years her light and voice had begun dimming. She felt at ease just melting into the background of everyone’s life and to be frank, nobody had seemed to notice, and when she did speak no one seemed to hear. She had slowly gone from friend to acquaintance from interesting to silent. Oddly, she wasn’t unhappy, in fact she would probably say she was content. There wasn’t “joyous occasion” or despair, there was just the mundane and comfortable. So, while she missed the action, she had run out of the energy for it and had become quite accustomed to her humdrum existence. Except when she had to write or feel and, for her, these two things were inextricably linked. There could not be one without the other. She sat back down at her desk and opened the academic article she had to edit for a client.  She poured her water glass, half empty, into the fern pot.  

Word Cloud Writing

I think we all have moments where writer’s block plants it’s butt firmly in our brains and refuses to budge. There are loads of tips and prompts that come up if you google search. I thought I would share one of my tried and tested methods, it works for me, so I thought it may be helpful to others. WORD CLOUD WRITING.

Copy and paste three different verses from three different songs or poems and pop them into a word cloud generator.

Use the magically created word cloud to try and create a title for a piece of free writing OR try and put together a bunch of nonsense sentences. Nothing needs to make sense. they idea is to see things in a different way. Let your brain step outside of grammar and punctuation and logical and flow.

Here is an example:

Word Cloud Fun

It peeked out of the closet. A mischief dusted mouse face with stargazer eyes. The dirty little nose twitched, and the funny doggy tail swished.

Give it try and let me know if it works for you. See another example below:

She descended uncontrollably into an awkward life soundtrack. The sun lingered, but silent shadows watched and lingered like a movie playing in the dark.

Because we know

You sadden my soul

With your quick scams and easy fixes

While we work

Slog

Manage

Reveal

We unleash that which is supposed to be hidden into the light of day

As you shake your head at our nakedness

Hiding with your healing podcasts

Your books of self-help ignore-reality

Your ignorance seeping through your pores

Like a smell of societal rot

You rage at phantoms

The image of yourself you blind yourself to

And we wait, to lend a hand

When you need

Because we know

Getting back to writing

It’s been a while since I last wrote anything remotely creative, which I miss. Realising that I seem to have lost the knack, I have signed up for writing prompt challenges… So welcome to my first attempt, let’s pray I improve.

Write a story about a character who’s nervous to attend a party – their first in a long time.

Seven hours to go. Seven hours and fifty-eight, fifty-seven, fifty-six. She shook her head at her own obsessive absurdity. “It will be fine; you will be fine.”

Claudia hadn’t left her house for thirty-nine days, and that was to see her legal pharmaceutical dealer. Prior to that it may, or may not, have been six to eight weeks that she had been housebound. Her denial merged days, and weeks, it could have been longer, could have been shorter (it was probably longer). Self-employed, remote work, a pandemic, home delivery. A list of all the reasons why she hadn’t left the house, trying to brush aside the glaringly obvious debilitating anxiety she had learned to live with, mostly. She stared at her vibrating phone, waiting for it to stop, “if it is important, they will send a message.” She mindlessly scrolled through Facebook while her head swirled with thoughts of why she hadn’t turned down the invitation. Could she do it now? Maybe she was ill. She had a headache, that could be the beginning of the flu or a migraine or COVID. She should check for a fever. Maybe it would storm and flood, now that would be convenient. Maybe the car wouldn’t start. Maybe the house would fall down around her, no, that would get people’s attention. Maybe the cat is sick. She glanced over and patted her voluptuous, big boned feline companion, Igor. “How sick are you Igor? Dying? But not so sick that you need the vet, right?” Igor looked up for a second, seemingly confused by his slave’s need for attention, then continued to unashamedly lick his nether regions.

Claudia managed to throw herself into work for a couple of hours, then panic threw open a flood gate of intermingled, haphazard thoughts. “What am I supposed to wear? Did I get the time right? Did I reply to that email? Should I take meds now or later? Is it JUDGEMENT or JUDGMENT? Do I have the date right? Do Albatrosses mate for life? How many other people will be there? Are they strangers or not? But seriously, do Albatrosses mate for life, or is it Swans? Am I supposed to take snacks?” Not surprisingly the Albatross question sent her down a distraction rabbit hole of online research, leading her to learn that it was indeed both Albatrosses and Swans that mate for life and that the Bassian Thrush farts to startle worms out of hiding. A fact she knew she would awkwardly silence a room with at some point.

She looked up at the clock, three hours to go. She decided it was time to start getting ready. She didn’t want to be late. Claudia trudged down the stairs, opened her closet and stared at her clothes. She decided on the jeans and shirt she wore every time she left the house. Throwing back a couple of anxiety meds she started a mind schedule. Shower time, make up time, hot mess hair bun time (she always tried to do her hair, but the hot mess hair bun was always the end result). Dressing time, driving time, driving-back-to-get-what-she-forgot-time, and final driving time. She defeatedly threw herself into the shower, realising that it would be rude to cancel at this late hour.

Once all was done, Claudia was ready way too early and now had to sit and watch the clock tick, she didn’t want to be early or late, but early was better. Impatiently she grabbed up a gift bag, filled with chocolates that she had been obsessively trying not to eat, checked that the stove was off, twice, and as anticipated, once she had gone back to get her handbag which she had forgotten, was finally on the drive to the surprise birthday party they were having for a friend. Arriving at her final destination, which was both literal and yet, felt figuratively true. She sat in her car, practising introductions and focussing on breathing, when a knock at her window caused her to yelp. Turning to the window she found a familiar face smiling at her. “What in the name of all that is holy, and unholy, was he doing here?” Claudia slowly moved her hand to the keys, as though trying not to be seen, turned on the car and fled. Fled being the correct word, heart racing, adrenaline pumping, her foot was pedal to the metal, okay, admittedly she wasn’t going over the speed limit, but she felt like she was driving like a bat out of hell, on cocaine. A few blocks away, she pulled over. Memories of her first love and the heartbreak came flooding back. She realised she should be feeling emotions, those feely things that people have, instead, she was overwhelmed with relief. She picked up her phone typing, “Hi Sammy, I’m not going to make it, my cat is sick”. Claudia drove back home, took off her make-up, put on her favourite house pants and snuggle top, and climbed into bed with Igor.  Crime and Investigation Channel and chocolates. “Well, that turned out alright, didn’t it Igor?”

Shifting

It’s been a long while since I wrote, and it has been quite a journey.  Changing countries and going through hell and back and then going through it again. I realised a couple of days ago that I think I became numb just trying to make it through 2 and a half years of turmoil and uncertainty.

But this is shifting. Something has come alive in me and now I need to make decisions and chances and change that which had put my fire out.

It stirs within me, that which I thought I had lost.

It roars the smallest roar and yet the vibration shakes me to the core.

I am afraid of the feeling deep within me that is pushing to be set free, the trouble it will cause when I open my arms and fly into the unknown universe of me.

The change is inevitable I feel it rising and it shall leave wreckage and rebirth in it’s path. It cannot be restrained, it cannot be stopped. It pulses through my veins and it burns through my shackles.

I am torn in half by the need to keep the balance, the peace, the bland expectations of normality and the fearlessness of the wild fire that is me, shaking and trembling to be released. Life is shifting.