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Sprung from the Heart

ISBN 978-0-9941077-6-3 (EPUB)

ISBN 978-0-9941077-7-0 (Kindle)

All rights as specified below.

This is a not-for-profit poetry anthology. This publication is not for sale, but published for free distribution in its entirety. No parts of it may be reproduced or shared. No exchange of money has occurred between the publisher and the authors and no entity will be allowed to offer it for sale.

N Titi Publishing holds copyright of the anthology, but all individual works are copyrighted as listed below by the individual authors and no poems may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the author.

This is a work of fiction and any references to real people or events are coincidental. The publisher is not responsible for the contents of the websites of the individual authors.

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[]Table of Contents

Front Cover

Title Page

Introduction – Sprung from the Heart

Bi-Polar

Eclipse

untitled (by EKB)

Chair of Truth

A Pipe Dream

Helpless

Diabeat-It

Bodied

untitled (by Aster X.)

War

The Island of Surtsey

Ana

Death of an Individual

Fighting

Canyoneering

Free

Behind the Invisible Wall

The Percussion

Wish

Judgment Hurts

[]INTRODUCTION

Sprung from the heart

the words

that so often

express

what has no words.

Sprung from the well

that harbours

the deepest self;

a fountain

of emotions.

Sprung from the heart,

the words are free

to carry a message

that is shared:

to not be alone.

Sprung into poetry

because, locked up,

they fester,

causing

the heart to break.

Throughout human history and in every culture, art has been the medium to best express our deepest emotions – those that surface in times of turmoil – and poetry is often a natural means of this expression, even by those who do not call themselves poets. This anthology tries to capture those emotions.

The idea was originally inspired by two people very close to my own heart who had turned to poetry to help them cope with emotional pain. In an attempt to give weight to the feelings that accompany contemporary problems, such as chronic illnesses, bullying, eating disorders and thoughts of suicide or self-harm, this anthology is a collection of the writings of those struggling with them – to share the sentiments so others may know they are not alone – as it is a true understanding we need to deal with emotional problems, not cold facts and figures.

I would like to thank Djanko and Lianna for giving their time and skills to make this publication look good, and to express my gratitude to all those who have trusted me with their feelings and creative works. I wish you all the strength you need in your struggles and all my love to help you through this.

NŌNEN TÍTI

[]BI-POLAR

Bi-Polar

Fire, it burns within my soul,

screaming to get free of me.

It leaps and flits from place to place,

ever changing my emotions.

Then the ice comes, and freezes,

cool wind blowing through me.

It chills and stops my feelings,

ever making me grow numb.

Fire and ice mix, causing a numbing burn,

and then I know.

The hot and cool sensations overtake me,

and I have lost control.

K.J. MILLER

http://tinyurl.com/poetry-and-creative-writing

[]ECLIPSE

I really like this feeling, feel home in it.

It’s uncanny, like an oasis at dusk

in a vampire ghost town.

Or maybe it’s in the way I like bitter things

even when my whole body shudders,

because I feel it tastes more real.

It’s delicious the way For Emma brings me back to the saddest part of any stretch of days– Or was it years? And maybe it keeps going and revisiting this space is not a return, or even a lapse, but the loud eclipse of what always was,

perhaps before even my time,

before everything Father did not say and Mother didn’t need to.

When it occurs, you’re not meant to look at the sky, directly at the happening, with a naked eye, a precaution that gave children an understanding of how cardboard can frame a function

like “Crazy Carl” grew up and made a home out of it,

and his fur, grey now, is always in a tuft of weather.

If God allows for Carl, why not naked eyes towards space?

Each time, to get closer to mystery, I’ll risk the loss of sight,

To no obvious gain

I’m at the train station now.

I’ve never seen anyone wave goodbye so wildly it approaches hello, or at least you forgot something! Such a cheerful goodbye, I don’t recognize it. No one has ever done me such a bidding.

Other people are never quite resolved to leave me in either mood. They see I’m the imprint of something real, or complete, or at least sure and straight in its sinking.

They are haunted by the invisible protrusion that shapes me, though they covet to know it, or be it.

I rove.

My heart is a weed among ruins. It envelops the hardness like ivy. It eats rock, rich mica-flecked granite. I was lured to your obsidian weight, beyond wish, your marble black, glistening, almost blue.

LENA SIEMIESZ

HTTPS://MEDIUM.COM/@LITTLELIBERATOR

[]UNTITLED POEM BY EKB

not getting out of bed

until four pm or even seven

isn’t normal

but see i didn’t know that

until my mother

broke my heart by

leaning on it.

you should never have to see

your parents cry

she has that darkblackspace

in her mind too, the doctor said

but now i can’t tell her

i have it too

because the only thing worse

than seeing your parents cry

is making them cry

now i’m not eating again

because walking downstairs

to see happy faces

and faking a smile

makes me feel emptier

than a day of water.

i hope you never know

what it is to be hungry

on the inside

walls of your heart.

EKB (AGE 18)

www.mermaidwithatypewriter.tumblr.com

[]CHAIR OF TRUTH

I awaken and smile.

I’m in my safe place; my meadow.

I rise and collect myself

And in the distance I see a theatre.

Interest piqued my soul and I made my way into the theatre.

It was ominous yet I see one desolate wooden chair.

I sit down in it with curiosity for what’s to emerge on the screen.

I recognize myself.

As I continue to watch I see this beautiful and lively girl.

With confidence and self-worth.

I connect with the message that recovery is worth it.

She had persevered.

In that precise moment I feel someone grasp my hand.

I peek down and see this mischievous twiggy creature.

I named him ED and he made me feel accepted.

A feeling I strived for my entire life.

With a sense of security

I glance back up at the screen and I have diminished.

There is a naked girl… fragile girl.

Who is she? I don’t recognize this girl.

ED squeezes my hand a little tighter

Implying that I am okay and then the screen transforms again.

A close-up of this girl with tears streaming down her face.

An emptiness in her eyes and soul.

Help me! She screams with a piercing voice of misery.

In that moment I know my truth.

That miserable girl who lives through whispering lies.

That girl is me.

I dearly glance down at ED

I grab his hand and walk back to my meadow.

I am not ready to let go of the acceptance and security ED provides

Lies or not, he still remains at my side.

JOANNE BALTODANO

Romancing the Road to Recovery

[]A PIPE DREAM

“Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation?

I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength,

strength and courage to yield to.” -Oscar Wilde

Because there isn’t a way to ask,

“What have you done with your body?”

I watched you take shape, like the endless

unveiling of a painted Russian doll.

The last figure; the stark white of your eyeball

Yet, I can’t forget the smallest piece of you;

the pearl skin of your teeth, hovering

over a dull heart pump–

hiding behind the closing of your mouth.

Had you designed this all, or,

I thought then, “What if your exoskeleton

were natural?”

Your body hard and small

Then,

Your eyes retained the only roundness in you,

crowning every desire you ever knew

a hunger only hunger could satiate.

LENA SIEMIESZ

HTTPS://MEDIUM.COM/@LITTLELIBERATOR

[]HELPLESS

What voices in your mind

overrule your intellect?

What feeling in your soul

lock out all common sense?

What power is in you

that blocks my reaching hand?

What is it I can do

to help you understand?

Starving in a place of plenty,

my perfect child; a skeleton.

You know that I reach out to you.

Why reject all my attempts?

How can you think you’re undeserving

of food, this basic need

while I have tried to give you all,

gave you life’s very seed?

In pain and anger, hurt and shame

you watch; I watch you too.

Helpless, rejected, taking blame

But baby, tell me what to do!

I watch you hide from life, from love

not letting anybody near

And yet, deep down you must know that

for you I’m always here.

ANONYMOUS

[]DIABEAT-IT

Some time ago, my life was called much harder just to live

was told my Pancreas made no more Insulin to give…

Began to see the room

Emergency became my tour

What reason for my sickness with no hope to find a cure…

The kids around; some cruel they be, cared not to understand

my reasons why I could not do all things our growth demands…

This sin of illness called a Juvenile Diabetic was

the weight I had to deal with…

with no reason why its cause…

Was teased about the sheets I’d wet while slumber sugar’s high

All of the pokes from needles that will sometimes make me cry…

The constant tests of blood and pee to see what I may eat

The torture of those Halloweens I could not ‘Treat or Treat’…

So weak inside from all the things I go through just to live

A chance to grow up normal is a bread that God won’t give…

But then again as time progressed, I got to know a place

called Camp NYDA where smiles were found on each Diabetic face…

This camp showed me I’m not alone – and trails I could surmount

Amazed there were so many kids like me… too many to count…

The caring guidance we received gave hope to recognize

What can and should be done to keep us healthy, strong, alive…

No longer fearing what I am… but learning to control

the Ketones and high sugar blood and urine sometimes show…

It’s hard to live as a Type 1 Diabetic, this is true

But knowledge makes my trails succeed, and errors mainly few…

I Talk… I Run… I Play… Have FUN – Much Happier I be

I took control of what I am – a Sick kid running Free…

And all the things I do to keep my sugars under tap

has made a stronger man complete life’s race… Yes, Ever Lap!

CALLOWAY SIMMONS

[]BODIED

“For the first time I actually felt

like I owned my skin,

like it was me and I was it”

-Hypatia Belicia Cabral, Junot Dîaz

I remember the tan weight of your lids,

how the extra curves of your lips

formed the roadway of a brimming trip,

a line I’d put my future on.

I remember holding, not willing, hanging,

from the high confidence of your shoulders

how words seemed to leak from every

part of your body, but it was you who said it

in the end

you who

carefully decoded my dialogue with God

as if my freckles connected into constellations

up my arms, and the closeness of breath ran

proportionate with truth,

like whispers in ears.

The air between us filled the edges

I’ve creased inward all my life.

Books tell me heroin does better–

but I’m not addicted to heroin.

So many times I didn’t respond soon enough.

I blame the high viscosity of experience

I trudged through just trying to catch words

from to your mouth, which made

me, malleable like the raw matter of blown glass

a recipe requiring then only your breath

–

Perhaps I’m still spinning on the craftsman’s rod

or else flung off, –finished,

shedding glitter like a year of dead skin

Now, I hold my hands curved up like empty bowls

my clothes are rags, my body

leavens the weight,

my body a vacuum-packed organ set

not your hand but traces upon it now, and

no mirror compares to the refraction of your eyes

from the earth I’m made of

LENA SIEMIESZ

HTTPS://MEDIUM.COM/@LITTLELIBERATOR

[]UNTITLED POEM BY ASTER X.

The kitchen seems five miles away

My towel weighs ten pounds

And the end

of gravity

lies six feet under

ground.

ASTER X.

[]WAR

Bang, blast, boom, pow,

those are the sounds heard.

Screaming, yelling, planes overhead,

more sounds heard.

Bloody, blurred visions

are all that can be seen.

A mix of terror, anxiety and excitement

is all that is felt.

Flashes of light

brighten the sky any time of day.

Retreat or fight;

the only two options.

For days this continues:

no food, no water, no sleep.

The screams lessen

as each day passes.

The sounds dim

as more and more die.

Finally the lights in the sky stop,

and everything is dark no matter what time of day.

K.J. MILLER

http://tinyurl.com/poetry-and-creative-writing

[]THE ISLAND OF SURTSEY

At sea, on the island of Surtsey, in my sea dress

laced with weeds, I’ve staked a little land.

The outline reaches where

I flung wide my hands

and turned like a gypsy

in a circle.

–

I look out over the horizon of water I cut

and coursed through to get here, like a bladed rotor;

different tongues on a word wheel, and chant

a gypsy hymn, drawing an orb around the soft head

of my past.

–

I am alone here. When I look down, every precious

thing I have lost is washed up on the shore dripping

wet.

The peeled silver eye of moonstone,

the deep red heat of your hand,

sopped in their sea-bearing.

And all the people who knew me as a child

are out there bobbing in a wind and water

marriage.

In the light of the sun, they wink their thoughts of me.

And I can only see it now, from Surtsey, all together

the faded mirage of every day done and gone.

And I need a net large enough, that can catch color, and I think

of how not enough feeds too much.

–

Alone, the sun and the soft sand are enough.

They are mine.

Still, If I could swallow every mistake and misword

like smashed green glass, I’d do it so you could see past. So I could bob with you.

–

It is dark now on my Island, sweet Surtsey, and the silence speaks

in black, and I think of death or the meaning of one life.

I strip the dry bark of a tree at night,

hold it to the slit light of the stars in the fifth house of destiny–

it reads rot.

When I hold it to my ear, it whispers in words of stained silk–

The sea holds and I drop like a flash of boiled blue.

LENA SIEMIESZ

HTTPS://MEDIUM.COM/@LITTLELIBERATOR

[]ANA

I rifle quick moments

to scribble these words

that shatter my thoughts.

Thoughts that mean more

than behaviours displayed.

Convictions that are a perpetual disturbance.

Thoughts that whisper in my perception of self

Until I ultimately disappear.

JOANNE BALTODANO

Romancing the Road to Recovery

[]DEATH OF AN INDIVIDUAL

So serene and curious

when you were newly born,

open to meet the big wide world;

trusting, shining, warm.

So full of zest for life and joy

a toddler, always on the go,

ready to experience it all;

an abundant loving show.

So smart you were at five and six

eager to learn, hear and see

soaking up knowledge everywhere

daring, individual, free.

Then school started.

Now your eyes are dull,

your posture hunched

you hide away at home;

defensive, silent, stunned.

Where’s my baby?

that beautiful soul

they killed –

the individual.

And now they’re giving you the blame

deride, justify, defend;

assert that you deserve this shame

for not being just like them.

ANONYMOUS

[]FIGHTING

Cowering in the corner,

way too scared to move.

The dog curls up beside me,

shaking as much as me.

I can hear them yelling

and it makes me sick.

To think they call this love

makes me never want it.

Makes me want to hold my heart

and never give it to anyone.

Makes me want to live alone,

makes me never want to care.

K.J. MILLER

http://tinyurl.com/poetry-and-creative-writing

[]CANYONEERING

At twilight, when the sky is neither light or dark

My heart senses the weight of you

I could explain it, I could justify it all.

But I’d rather blame myself–

How I couldn’t decipher which territory to perform

On either side of your borderline

And so, I botched it.

My person now switches from second to third

as I set sail from an island

–

Was that who he was then?

The objective one who finally ended it?

The one, free of emotion and thus response

Or something more sinister

There is an art to being ignored–

I’m flailing on its mute canvas like a frantic fly

In the web of a spider, not quite hungry yet

I remember

He couldn’t look at me

when he mentioned his father

And how could I expect he

build love on a foundation of loss

Like a cliff meets the sea.

I wish he saw salvation, not storms,

in my eyes,

where he coveted a wickedness

he couldn’t understand,

a softness that swallows.

like Daddy’s right shoulder blade, round and blunt

when he walked away,

every time hoping, but fearing, he’ll return

–

We go canyoneering to spy on waterfalls.

The tread of wet stone

Only our feet grace

from harnessed heights

all the way down

we dread the actual falling,

we have little courage for the thing itself

At bottom, experience is only the nascent blur of memory

which holds little promise

–

Sometimes majesty is too terrible

and succumbing would force us to change

the way we love

which we’ve inherited

and it feels so right, in pain

like my father’s fists

In the same way, I’m addicted to you

like the back of your father’s head

standing here now, your scent still on me,

I know you now more deeply than ever.

At the sharpest ridges of your rock precipice

your wordlessness is my love letter.

LENA SIEMIESZ

HTTPS://MEDIUM.COM/@LITTLELIBERATOR

[]FREE

Her skin stings,

he yells,

she cowers.

Slap, slap, kick,

again and again,

she curls into a ball.

He walks away,

disgusted and angry,

she lays there.

Too scared to move,

too scared to breathe,

listening for his footsteps.

Thirty minutes pass,

she hears the front door,

she hears his car.

Another thirty minutes pass,

she finally gets up,

aching from every hit.

She creeps down the stairs,

she slides on her shoes,

she exits the door.

Her feet hit the ground,

immediately she feels free,

so she runs.

She runs,

and runs and runs,

and doesn’t look back.

K.J. MILLER

http://tinyurl.com/poetry-and-creative-writing

[]BEHIND THE INVISIBLE WALL

A parent

fearful

of having done wrong

grasps at straws

grown from science

– without root –

that blame the food, the hormones,

the brain;

anything that points at the child will do.

A teacher

worried

they have missed clues

accepts answers

sparked by fashion

– flawed logic –

of disorders, bad homes,

TV;

anything that says, “It wasn’t me.”

Experts

hopeful

with faith in correlations

see truth

forged by cold facts

– wishful thinking –

in status, statistics,

titles;

anything that proves what they can do.

Children

innocent

trusting parents, teachers, experts,

accept the labels

popular phrases

– accusations –

for looks, behaviour,

personality;

until they break and start to shoot.

Victims

hidden

behind an invisible wall

of relations,

not objects

– the excuses –

for bullying, self-harm,

suicide;

untouchables behind a wall of ignorance.

NŌNEN TÍTI

[]THE PERCUSSION

I don’t think it can be said in a word

how one wrong step can lead you to fall

out of your life like death in a dream;

like my dream where I show a gunned man my hand

and then watch it descend into darkness like night,

like one spiraling limb from light—it was only one.

There’s more than one way to write ‘one;’

As a number and as its conceptual word.

A single anchor sinks into the sea of every night

If you run from or after the darkness you will fall.

Free your fingers and the man might blow off your hand.

But alas that’s the story behind every dream.

Reality is the imperialist othering of a dream

and its worlds and nations. I had one

once when the wrist-side notches of my hand

were tethered to a rope which kept its word

in a knot tied to an airplane, minute-physics from fall

I hung suspended from a plane’s tail all night.

Visions enter or exit my mind each night.

It just depends how you conceive of a dream,

which depends upon the weight of a fall

from consciousness, which is one

with unconsciousness; it’s each word

that makes them different. Without day there’s no night.

I have stared in wonder at my hands,

seen them reach round the full belly of night,

felt them pinch the soft corner of a just word

and trace the velvet outline of a dream.

In the middle of my mind there is one;

it smells of crushed colored trees in the heat of Fall

How many ideas can you bring to the word fall?

Can you hold any of them in your hand

like the weight of the wind in your hand forms one

gaseous ball from a free fall. --You can have night

too, like chocolate cake splintered with the shrapnel of a dream

that exploded into fragments composed of word.

The grits in my coffee are word-

bits. The sight at the end of my vision is a dream-

fixation, channeled through the round body of night.

LENA SIEMIESZ

HTTPS://MEDIUM.COM/@LITTLELIBERATOR

[]WISH

I wish I had a minute

to sit and be in calm and peace,

I wish I had a minute

to let go and just release.

I wish I had a minute

to think a little of myself,

I wish I had a minute,

no more feelings on the shelf.

I wish I had a minute

to close my eyes and sing,

I wish I had a minute

to more than cater to my King.

I wish I had a minute

where no one was around,

I wish I had a minute

to just lie upon the ground.

I wish I had a minute

to get some clarity,

I wish I had a minute,

a minute just for me.

K.J. MILLER

http://tinyurl.com/poetry-and-creative-writing

[]JUDGMENTS HURTS

Judgment Hurts:

It scars and destroys

creates anger and hate

resentment,

revenge.

Judgment.

Judge me not

for your morals

are daggers

to my soul.

And if you must

– judge –

for you are human,

then keep to

yourself

what you think,

for freedom is not

saying what you wish

It is having the choice

to speak – or not –

for peace.

Judgment Hurts:

It causes pain

it stops one eating

keeps another doing so,

it causes abuse

and bullying.

Stop judging

for you are no better

than them.

THANK YOU FOR READING.

NŌNEN TÍTI

Sprung from the Heart

This anthology of poetry comes directly from the heart of its contributors, all of whom are struggling with emotional or physical problems. All submitted their poems to share with the world in the hope that it might help create more understanding for their inner stirrings. Many are young writers, the victim of bullying or dealing with anorexia or obesity. Others have lived with Type 1 diabetes their entire life. Others simply share their feeling different. The contributions to the anthology helped support the writing of its companion fictional book Soup and Bread and it is presented free of charge to create awareness and respect for those who are suffering alone or in silence. Let us listen to their heart.

Author: NÅnen TÃti
Published: 2017-06-13 10:26:10
Words: 4168