By Daniel Paiz

Poetic forms are aplenty when it comes to trying out new styles. There are some that tend to follow rhyming every other line, some that rhyme every third line, and some that have different patterns for each verse or section.

Learning these forms can be a guiding light for some folks, as learning the structure or “rules” helps one to break them in a way. However, learning such forms can only take a writer so far. For NaPoWriMo and all other challenges of the poetic variety, sharing from the heart and soul might elevate one further.

…Okay, So Stop Doing It Then

Overthinking,

retooling and editing before a thought fully forms

outside of the brain and stumbles along dismayed,

corrupted files of the page and ink variety,

high society be it literary or aristocratic won’t mind,

because they’ll see you not matter in the most nefarious ways.

However,

the biggest culprit,

the instigator, the abuser, the unrelenting stabber of self worth,

that you or I or anyone we might know,

is in fact someone that can’t be sketched,

by caricaturist or police sketcher or anyone else scribbling with talent.

/////////////////////////

This cryptid,

This malfeasant,

This simulacra Phillip K. Dick didn’t build for you,

is the most recognizable entity you know.

“But how could you know that?!”

Because YOU are the one who is meanest of them all.

Cruel to the core, bombarding self with doubts,

with judgements, lines so repugnant

that each prison would have

a cell block full of folks thinking such things about the self.

/////////////////////////

Maybe,

Possibly,

Take this suggestion on for size,

it isn’t too harsh to surmise,

that one does not do that.

One wouldn’t let another do that to them most likely,

okay?

…. okay so stop doing that then.