Writing Dreams, Aspirations and Goals

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I had my son in my thoughts when I wrote this.  It is difficult to be a child growing up and my son is just at the beginning of a very long journey.  It is a difficult journey and I fear for him.  Memories of my youth return to me whenever I think about what he is about to embark as he begins to go to school and separate from me.  I wonder if he can stand up to what life has in store for him and if I have adequately prepared him for the road that lies ahead.  The science shows that the foundation of a person’s being is built upon the experiences of his first three years of life.  Well, Gavin has passed those first three years and I don’t know if I have done enough.

No matter what they say,

You are special and unique,

A precious gem within my life,

You are amazing to behold.

No matter what they say,

You bring me such delight,

A ray of sunshine to my days,

You warm my heart.

My love for you holds no bounds,

You are the meaning in my life,

Wherever you are, remember this,

No matter what they say.

Other entries that may interest you:



• Creative Writing Standards
• Poetry: Broken Dreams
• Poetry: Let Me In
• A Change in Writing Attitude
• Poetry: Frozen Emotions

I was reading a restaurant review today and I was appalled the poor grammar.  It made me wonder what the editor was doing when he or she read this piece.  The editor is either a lousy editor or a lazy one because I cannot believe any editor would approve an article so poorly written.

Not only was the standard of English atrocious but the writer mis-quoted the chef.  I know the chef and she speaks English fluently.  The quotes included in the article made her sound like a struggling ESL student.  Okay, okay, I exaggerate – a little.

That’s not the only poorly written article I’ve seen in print.  There are many others out there.  I’ve even seen poorly written articles in the newspapers…

What’s my point?  Well, if articles of that standard can be published, then surely I can write something worthy of publication in a printed magazine, no?

Other entries that may interest you:



• Anyone can be a Writer
• Want to Get Published? Write a Romance Novel!
• Writing on the Internet
• A Light at the End of the Tunnel
• Have You Got What it Takes to be a Published Writer?

This was just one of those poems that came out quite easily.  I was merely fulfilling an empty title on Helium and this came out.  If only they were all that easy…

Let me in, I want to help you.

I see your pain – I can feel it, too.

Let me in, please open your heart.

Tell me everything, begin at the start.

Let me in, share all your tears.

Tell me all about your fears.

Let me in, don’t keep me out.

Tell me what it is all about.

Let me in, let me love you.

I want to share all you feel, too.

I’m here to catch you if you fall.

Good and bad, I’ll take it all.

Let the healing process begin.

Please, please, let me in…

Other entries that may interest you:



• Creative Writing Standards
• Poetry: Broken Dreams
• Poetry: Frozen Emotions
• Poetry: No Matter What They Say
• Poetry: You Made Me Believe

The original title to this piece was “Riding Rollercoasters”.  I wrote it some years back during a rather traumatic period of my life.  It was originally just a piece of writing, but I converted it into a poem for Helium.  The title was re-worked because I couldn’t find an appropriate topic under Helium to enter it.  Just for the record – I’m not Bipolar.

How strange it is to read my thoughts of a time long ago.  It almost seems like I’m reading the journal of somebody else…

There are the days,

The sun’s incandescence is so bright,

I feel immortal in its radiance,

Nothing can touch me.

There are the days,

The stratosphere is so thick with clouds,

All light is engulfed by the ominous billows.

Will I see the sun again?

Or am I doomed to live,

In perpetual darkness?

They say “it is better to light one candle,

Than to curse the dark”,

But what happens when there are no candles,

Or tinder to light them with?

I pray and hope for the sun to show itself;

My mind deceives me,

I wonder if it really ever existed.

It is a faded memory,

Playing like a dream so far from reality.

The yoyo of highs and lows are so intense,

I feel as though I’m losing my mind.

I have no sense of what is real,

I begin to wonder why I am here.

The most frightening part is,

When I no longer care.

Losing that will to fight,

I’m the terminal patient on her deathbed,

Waiting for the angels to come take her away.

Other entries that may interest you:



• Creative Writing Standards
• Poetry: Broken Dreams
• Poetry: Let Me In
• Poetry: Frozen Emotions
• Writer’s Block

Some days the prose comes easily, and some days, I struggle to put together two words.  The inspired works are usually the easiest.  They also retain their appeal for longer – or rather, the appeal in my eyes.  I wrote this on Helium a little while back and I’m glad to say I still like it.  It didn’t rate well on Helium, but then again, it was one out of two…

I was a cold and empty shell,

So far removed from this world where I dwelled.

I passed through life like a ghost in time,

My thoughts and emotions, I never opined.

Making barely a ripple in the water of life,

I kept to myself and stayed away from all strife.

I chose not to live because I was afraid to feel.

So burnt by a past, I could never be healed.

And then you came and changed my world,

Dreams long gone began to unfurl.

You warmed this ice cold heart of mine,

And thawed what had been frozen in time.

You brought me back to life again,

And helped me see it was worth the pain.

I thank you for your certainty,

For you made me believe… in me.

Other entries that may interest you:



• Creative Writing Standards
• Poetry: Broken Dreams
• Poetry: Let Me In
• Poetry: You Have My Heart
• Poetry: Puppets

Another dark poem from an era of post-adolescent angst…

My heart of stone is closing up,

The walls are growing again,

Encasing it so I cannot feel,

Removing me from this world.

Do I love?

I do not know.

I cannot feel it.

I say the words, but it is a lie.

There is no feeling behind the words.

I sit and reminisce the memories of old,

And still I feel nothing.

I do not know how to feel.

I look at them and I feel pity,

There is no love in this cold, cold heart.

Filled only with dark emotions -

Bitterness, anger, hate…

What beauty can the husk create,

But more darkness and more sorrow?

Why procreate with so much ugliness?

What can I hope to achieve?

Destroy me – there is no hope for life here,

All I touch will die with me.

Other entries that may interest you:



• Poetry: You Made Me Believe
• Poetry: Broken Dreams
• Poetry: Puppets
• Creative Writing Standards
• Writer’s Block

The original piece was not a poem but a piece of writing I threw together during a rather tumultuous time of my life – yes, it is a personal reflection.  I modified it and converted it into a poem because it seemed to work better that way.  Indeed it did, for it made it to number one on Helium for a brief period before dropping and remaining at number two.

I’ve said before that some of the better written works need to be born from real life and the emotions of true experiences.  The personal view often breathes life into words where none existed before because is it always easier to write about something that you know and feel than about a topic you know nothing about and cannot identify with.

That isn’t to say that one cannot write well about topics we don’t know ourselves, but merely that it is more difficult to do so.  I think the Bronte sisters are a great example of writers who wrote well about lives they have never experienced.

I have been a marionette all my life –

Singing and dancing to the Pied Piper’s tune.

Without the music, I have nothing in my life.

Don’t know what I want, can’t speak for myself.

I don’t know what it means to love and desire,

To live in the world as though I belonged.

It is so easy to do what I’m told,

Follow the actions they pull on my strings.

But sometimes I feel I could be so much more,

Destined for greater things I cannot articulate.

Pinocchio became a real boy in the end.

I hope I, too, can be a real girl some day.

Other entries that may interest you:



• Creative Writing Standards
• Poetry: Broken Dreams
• Poetry: Let Me In
• Poetry: Frozen Emotions
• Poetry: No Matter What They Say

I must be nocturnal.  I love being awake at night when everyone else is asleep.  There is something magical about the feeling of being the only one awake at night while the rest of the household sleeps.  Ever since I burned the midnight oil in high school and into University, I’ve continued to revel in the peaceful tranquility of the night.

Back in Melbourne, I would wander down to the 24-hour Coles being manned by the graveyard crew.  It’s nice being one of the few customers roaming the aisles and not having to queue up at the cashier.  The other part of the night which I have never been able to experience back here is the silence.  I have never realised how quiet the night in Australia is until I’m back for the holidays – suddenly, I remember what it means to have insomnia because the night is too “silent”.

The other thing I never hear is the breaking of dawn – when the birds come out.  It is a sound I never hear during the day because they get drowned out by the hustle and bustle of city life.  It is a sound I can’t remember hearing in Malaysia because the city never sleeps.  It merely slows down and then it speeds up again, and the sounds from the birds are never ever heard.

Anyway, the night described in the following poem is not a night in Malaysia, but a night in Australia back in the days when I would stay up late to pull and all-nighter before an exam.  As I said, in Malaysia, the nights are never silent.  There is always the hum of the air conditioning, the occasional car or bike driving in the distance, and – these days – the sound of my husband snoring…

I love the night.

I love the night,
Its peaceful serenity,
Its calm reflection,
Its silent stillness.

I love the night,
Not a sound to be heard,
Not a car, not a voice,
No music, nor disturbance.

I love the night,
The carefree sensation,
Of boundless time,
And freedom to wonder.

I love the night,
The cover of darkness,
The tranquil moments,
The velvet silence.

I love the night.

Other entries that may interest you:



• I Love the Night
• 10 More Things I Love About You
• Poetry: Frozen Emotions
• Poetry: Let Me In
• Poetry: The Love of a Lifetime

I’m not much of a musical person.  I learned to play the piano and I like to sing with a passion but I’m not naive enough to believe I have much talent for it.  My piano timing has always been rather suspect – a crochet means shorter, a minum means longer, a quaver is faster and a semi-quaver faster still.  I have no ear for keys and take for granted that what I hear on the piano is what it is.  Despite that, I decided to take music as one of my subjects at school and not surprisingly, I was dismal at it.

Okay, I’m rambling…  One of the benefits of taking music as a subject at school, however, was being able to attend musicals and concerts during school hours.  Now how could you beat that?  One of the musicals I attended was “Aspects of Love” by Andrew Lloyd Webber.  It wasn’t an earth-shattering musical but there was one particular piece that stayed in my head and still continues to live there.  It is a part sung by Giulietta about her past lover – George – whom she has never been able to forget:

“If I could still hear the music I heard then,

I’d never let it go away again.

Now each time love reaches out to me,

I can’t help but feel there has to be,

So much more to love…”

This poem was inspired by that verse…

The love of a lifetime I had in my hands,

But I gave it away and made other plans.

How blind I was that I couldn’t see,

A wondrous love – the best that could be.

I wanted to see what the world had to give,

There was so much I wanted to live.

How could I know that I had it all?

Instead I heeded the vagrant call.

I fleeted through life from lover to lover,

I stay but a while and leave when it’s over.

I’ve seen many hands and empty faces,

But nothing ever really replaces,

That love of a lifetime I had in my hands,

The one that I left for my other plans.

I keep searching, but that love eludes me,

No one makes me feel that way but he.

I know there has to be much more than this,

The love that he gave is the one that I miss.

If I could just hear the music once more,

Go back to the time of that love from before,

I promise I’ll never let it go again,

Right by his side, forever I’ll remain.

Other entries that may interest you:



• Poetry: Frozen Emotions
• Poetry: Let Me In
• Poetry: I Love the Night
• Poetry: Broken Dreams
• 10 More Things I Love About You

The original poem written under this title was:

You have my heart in the palm of your hand,
You had it the day my eyes found you.
It’s yours to keep – to caress, or to crush
For it beats only for you and no one else.
You have total control over my heart,
It flutters each time your eyes touch mine,
It shivers to know your hand is near,
It basks in your attention, delights in your love.
You own my heart now and forever,
Want it, don’t want it, please take it with you,
For without you I have no need of my heart,
No need for its beat for I’ve no need for life.

Unfortunately, it didn’t rate very well on Helium so I rewrote the poem which is (at time of posting) rated number one – let’s hope it stays there:

I still remember the day we met,
Brought together by that silly bet.
So different – you and I – at opposite poles,
A world apart was our two souls.
You were the day, I was the night,
Thought I’d be blinded by your light.
How different could two people be?
How we’d survive, I couldn’t see.
But still my heart I gave to you,
Black and ugly, worthless, too,
Yet you kept my useless heart,
Accepted it right from the start,
And gave me your heart made of gold,
Worth so much more – one thousand fold.
Why would you want this broken husk?
Fading away just like the dusk?
I’ve never known the reasons why,
At your side, you’d want me by.
And so I wait until that day,
“I don’t want you,” is what you say.
So until you and I must part,
Until then, you have my heart.

Other entries that may interest you:



• Poetry: Frozen Emotions
• Poetry: Let Me In
• Poetry: No Matter What They Say
• Creative Writing Standards
• Poetry: You Made Me Believe