November: 2/5 Day Monthly Writing Challenge

Inspiration:

Reflect on your greatest struggle, how you define it. Tell the story of how you overcame or are overcoming it. Consider how enduring the struggle has changed you - perhaps for the better. A few questions help you move through the process.

• What was a problem that changed who you were, how you acted, and how you saw the world?

• When you overcame that problem, was there a struggle to do that too?

• When you changed for the better, was the problem still a part of you?

• Did it leave a permanent indent on your outlook of life?

• Did it help you see (the world/your life) clearer?

Form Suggestion:

Try to write your poem in couplets today. A couplet is a poem made up of two-line stanzas with the final word of each line rhyming.

To meet, to know, to love - and then to part,

Is the sad tale of many a human heart.

-Samuel Taylor Coleridge

• Notice how the two lines rhyme in this couplet?

• Notice how both lines have a similar number of syllables?

This is called meter, which gives the poem rhythm. This is a site that can help you with writing.

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My Poem

"Failing Expectations"

I find myself torn between expectations

Stumbling and tripping as I build my foundations.

Where do the blocks go,

How should I ever know?

A constant struggle to follow the line

And give good directions at the same time

I don't need you to know I laid this foundation

I don't need you to know I chose this location

I started here

With no fear

Because I was doing what needed to be done

Without thinking, I was present as the only one

I looked behind me to see the past constructions

I demanded everyone knew and 'twas my destruction

Tripping and stumbling over my own feet

Feeling pressure from expectations I may never meet

How do I tackle these phantom compositions

How do I get them to believe in our missions?

I've learned that my boots must come to the ground

Without participation there is no leadership to be found

You can't always live up to your own demands

You have to march to your own beat or create your own band

Only when I found comfort in the crowd

Did I give myself permission, did I feel allowed.

I can make mistakes from the back

I can feel super human when I'm on the right track

I can encourage, demand, lend a helping hand

Without being afraid of my fallibility because of where I stand

I find myself torn between expectations

But catching my balance as I go back to my foundations