Over the course of the many odd years I have been writing, whether its poetry or prose, the hardest subject to tackle is my humanity because it forces me to look into all the little dark corners I have folded away over the years. Its difficult to look into these corners because it forces us to examine our short comings and failures, our fears and embarrassments, all the things we don’t like to admit that are a part of us. And we all have them.
For me, I think one of the darkest folds is my lack of empathy for others, which Im not completely devoid of, because I do feel for those who are closest to me, but for the general populace? I could care less. I know when an event is tragic, such as a house fire, earthquake or mass shooting, but other than acknowledging the tragedy, I have no emotion towards it, or for those who suffered through it. Im sure I am not alone, but sometimes I feel that way, especially when those I am close to seem to be saddened by such an event.
As I have gotten older I have started to look into these dark corners more and more, trying to see the events that caused the folds, trying to understand how they affected me and more importantly how to reverse them. Its tough. For those of you who have known me a while or read some of my previous souljournalist writings, this is not the first time I have acknowledged my short comings (no, that’s not a “That’s what she said” joke ) and my desire to change them. I have made progress, looking at certain situations and early relationships, knowing that they had a hand in making those folds. I think I have even been able to open my heart more to help me understand how the many different kinds of love can affect and change us, either keeping us apart or bringing us together to connect with others. And I have realized its those connections that are central to the human condition.
A couple of years ago I participated in the Souljournalist challenge- It was a prompt based challenge to write a journal entry every day for a month, with each week featuring a specific theme and each day featuring a new prompt. I loved it and enjoyed not only the challenge of coming up with a non-fiction entry each day but the camaraderie of all who participated. A group was also born from this challenge with the idea to feature journal style entries written from the heart.
Recently, the lovely SenoritaBlack was hit with writers block. Having gone through several bouts myself, as most of us “writer” types have, I wanted to help her try to break it and thought the souljournalist challenge might be the way to do so. I filled her in on the particulars of the challenge and let her know I would choose prompts that had already been written about so she could go back and read the other entries and eventually I would chose new ones and join her writing about them.
On the third day, I chose the word “condition”, a new prompt, as opposed to an old one, because I didn’t feel like browsing through all the previous prompts. Ms Black expressed her eagerness to not only write about this new prompt but to read what I had written, which, being a “new” prompt, I hadn’t done yet. So, here we are- Any new journal entries will be for these specific prompts. If anyone would like to join us, please feel free, we would love to have you. Also feel free, if you do participate, to link your journal entries in the comment section so we can share our work. You could also join the Souljournalist group and submit entries there as well.
This Deserves a Feature On Its OwnBecause the reception it's receiving now is actually becoming really, really surprising and I'm so damn happy to see this. All of you guys are inspiring me and I thank you all for being fearless. Thank you all for being so freaking beautiful and honest and amazing in your own perfectly imperfect skin. This is why I called myself chromeantennae because I want to spread my message and I never expected anyone to listen, but now that people are-- it's so humbling. This is exactly what I want to do with my time here. I want to inspire creation and right now this is exactly what is happening and I couldn't be prouder.
With suggestion, I've added my own deviation so you all can see what prompted this to begin with:
And here all of the pieces (besides mine) that seemed to have stem from one another in some way and I will add more every time someone writes a poem or response on this topic that was directly inspired by this:
@A-