A Tropical Escape Poetry Collection

poetry responses to Know Thyself Heal Thyself

Monday: A Place To Go When You Need Love

When seeking love, I go to bed — no, get your mind out of that gutter, I’m looking for the comfort of sleep.

When seeking love, I return to the most basic of care, ensuring that I get my solid 8+ hours of sleep, knowing that sometimes I stay up to create, to be, to exist far more than my body can really handle, and in those moments of rest I rejuvenate.

When seeking love, I return to the calmness of night, letting my mind enter dreamscape to string the randomest sequences together, knowing that my awake brain will look back in humour or in revelation of some unearthed connection.

Author’s note: I know sometimes I just get overstimulated because there’s SO many things I could be reading or watching or doing or unearthing in some capacity. It’s a great time to live in because I don’t think I’ve been bored in ages (though perhaps that’s another topic for another day), but sometimes I forget that I am human and have humanly needs and push sleep further and further in the night.

Committing back to sleep has always been the first step when I need a bit of self-love. In returning to my sleep routine, the rest fall into place, because I stop binge-eating/ snacking out of boredom or fatigue, and I start making better decisions for every other thing in my life.

When I’m looking for answers, sleep also brings me to them in the wildest of ways. I don’t believe in dream interpretation mojo in the way that Freud or other dream interpreters might lay out, but I believe that the randomness of how the brain flashes the ideas and thoughts of what I encounter in the day help me see things in an entirely new fashion. It’s kind of like randomizer of ideas, the way that I select 6 random words to create entirely new poems I’d never thought I’d create before. In that way, I believe that the night brings advice (la nuit porte conseil).

Tuesday: Personify one of your insecurities and write about it

Shoulders rounded, body folded in like a discarded written draft, unsure when to roll into the conversation;

eyes diverted, unsure if confidence warranted, voice small, easily spoken over.

palms sweaty, heart palpitating, voice shaking, as if what I had to say, even if it was simple as an opinion on strawberries, involved conveying just too much for the day.

Author’s note: This was so interesting to reflect on because in a way, one of my insecurities is clearly embodied and the way that I’ve worked against some of it is to rejig body language to support myself.

For me, this insecurity is feeling like I deserve to take up space in a conversation, knowing how to place my input and have it be heard instead of dismissed.

In a way, you can see it animated in the standard way — character body language is folded inward, shoulders rounded in, eyes looking at the floor.

And so one way of counteracting this for me is to genuinely and consciously undo some of this body language. It makes sense. You can’t genuinely gauge the right time to jump into the skipping rope (or conversation) without keeping your eyes dynamically monitoring all the pieces, the expressions, the body language.

Opening up your body language so that it’s no longer crumpled also generally helps with breathing more steadily, which is something that helps me calm my nerves when anxious.

Though doing these things don’t “solve” my insecurity, it sure builds a foundation so that it’s easier to tackle what I’m insecure about. Instead of trying to reach the top by sheer height, I’m leaning on the support of a step stool, so nothing comes crashing down on my head.

Wednesday: Write a prescription for doubt

100mg of curiosity unfolding as questions peeking into those doubts and transforming them into meaning.

100mg of curiosity taking questions of fear and hearing the underlying message with a dash of empowerment — yes, what if this goes wrong, and yes, how can we plan around it for ultimate success and equally, balance with what if this goes right, and how do we plan on supporting that success?

In a way, doubt is but the percursor element to curiosity, fueled by fear to pull back instead of approach

They are the same questions ready to be unraveled with 100mg of curiosity if we shine that spotlight directly on fear to illuminate just what wisdoms to keep, and what roads to build.

Author’s note: Transforming doubt into curiosity is one of the strongest coping mechanisms that I’ve built so far. I’ve had a lot of difficulty with anxiety coping mechanisms that are about shutting it out or ignoring it in some way, because to a degree, my anxiety speaks to protecting me from past dangers that may not exist in the same form anymore.

Getting to the bottom and being curious about what that anxiety is telling me, hearing the meaning of it, without taking the aspects of anxiety that aren’t helpful to me in the moment has been my of melting anxiety into its base ingredients and trying to take forward the pieces I need.

My anxiety comes in the form of planning ahead and asking 1189273123 questions, and actually, that’s a strength. I’m now learning to ask them from a point of curiosity of learning and hope rather than asking from a point of scarcity and fear.

And so for me, my “prescription” for doubt and feeling like something might go wrong is in the form of curiosity in genuinely exploring the potential cons, but also making space for the pros.

Thursday: Write about a paradisal beyond the cloudscape

When I point to the “future” which direction do you envision me pointing?

Is it to the right, because presumptiously, reading an English poem as this, you normally read from left to right, and visual timelines are thus usually illustrated from left to right, with right being in the future?

Or is it “forward” as in we’re trotting forward in time, looking forward to an event, moving forward through steps?

Or could it be upwards towards paradise past the cloudscape which could hold spiritual meaning as the heavens mark the end of life, or the tangible exploration of space as human beings in the future hoping to mingle with other species when we finally get our sh*t together and stop fighting our own?

Author’s note: “Which direction is the future?” has been such an interesting thing to think about. I had a chat with a friend over coffee once and we discussed how our visual descriptions of “time” and how it “moves forwards” can be different depending on the language we use.

In English I think of history timelines being laid out from left to right; the “future” is associated with the right hand side. But also, in English and Cantonese is the concept of “moving forward” from an ordeal (向前望 — looking forward) to something in the future.

But in this prompt I thought about yet another direction we hadn’t really thought about, but germane to the recent exploration of space by billionaires. Could we, as humanity, finally get our sh*t together and explore space in a way that harmoniously works with the rest of the universe? Could we do that, even though we struggle and struggle to do so with the resources we have on earth?

Only time will tell.

And which direction will that time be? I think we have some influence on that in our next steps.

Friday: Write about what it means to talk, move and love with purpose

To talk, to move, to love with purpose is to understand where we stand and how that might impact our connections with others in the ambiguities, the complexities and nuances in between.

Author’s note: I feel like there are stages of finding purpose.

Stage 1: Not having a purpose, or having a purpose imposed on you by others. Sometimes, in a good way (e.g., parents influencing your values); sometimes, in a bad way (e.g., advertising marketing values to you to profit off of your insecurity).

Stage 2: Then, finding your purpose and taking the time to heal from the little bits that only focussing on others’ has taken away from you. You’re finally speaking and speaking loud and proud about your own values.

Stage 3: I think some people stop at stage 2 without really going further, and I wish more people reached stage 3 of having humility in those beliefs and purposes. Sometimes, in the pride and love of our own values we shout them far too loud and become the people in Stage 1, imposing on people who then become so lost in the noise that they’re unable to reach Stage 2. I think reaching Stage 3 involves humility that in your context and given the ingredients that made your life, you may find certain values valuable, but to also realize that others have different journeys and may not find what you find valuable good or necessary. To not notice or make space for that complexity in a connection often harms one, or the both of you.

Saturday: Write about what happens when your feet want to walk a certain path, but your heart insists on walking another

When my feet want to walk a certain path but my heart insists on walking another, I ask my heart — why this direction? I ask my feet — why this direction?

My heart features my true desires, but to remember that the heart is encased in quite some protective gear, sitting in the dark, not privy to the most up-to-date visual information through the eyes.

It might be right in holding my deepest values, but sometimes requires that extra push outside the comfort zone.

My feet, on-the-other-hand (or foot?) knows the earth intimately, knows the routine paths I take, knows the dangers and the risks

It holds a different understanding of the world.

To integrate it all perhaps I’d reflect on the deepest of values in my heart and the habitual routes my feet take, and find the genuine compromise that follows those desires, and corrects habits in a way that truly aligns with who I am.

Author’s note: To create harmony when there is disagreement is to understand the deeper purpose of each piece. To my heart, my north star, holds my deepest values; she may be stubborn and lack most up-to-date information of what’s going on. To my feet, my habitual round-the-clock routine there is steadiness but also the most updated information about the risks and dangers. To balance across that is to examine why I have certain routines, whether they still align with my heart, and to slowly take the steps towards the way I want to live, while knowing that habits are hard to break and genuinely may take time to relearn these routes.

Hi I’m Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她) and I’m just returning from a semi-staycation to a beautiful tropically themed poetry challenge! Thank you so much to Diana C. for this beautiful set of prompts and for always providing us with healing reminders and questions to reflect on ❤ 💌 Ps, let me in your inbox!