"That sucks", jaw clenching, "Worst handwriting, too - do that again", "Is that even your best?", "There are several others as bad as that one". Thanks Sigrid, until next time!

I remember when doing this challenge, it completely broke me knowing that I could have improved so much (the best, nr77 out of 100), only to go right back down to the worst so close to the final portrait (the worst, nr 95 out of 100). It made me feel like I hadn't really improved at all, and that I created as bad things as always, with only lucky moments here and there where something would go right and I'd develop "a best". It's still tough for me to look back at these and their difference in quality, I find that my inner critic often acts with bodily reactions like clenching their jaws, squinting their eyes, furrowing their brows, staring with hatred. 

I actually wanted to choose poems at first, because they feel even more vulnerable (because I still feel like a total beginner) - but my issue there was that I couldn't even decide for myself what the best and worst was. I felt lost, not even knowing quality in my own work, only barely, but still of course finding that there is more bad than good. You know what? I'm going to post some poems after all. Who knows if they're bad or good, it feels scary and that's the point of all this!

My worst poem (one of them anyway):

Nr 8:

Feeling lost in a world
Where maps don't exist,
The concept of knowing, is unknown,
And prediction, unheard of.

Desperately clinging
To my once attached limbs,
Now strangers to me,
Portraying the broken wreck I am.

At the core of my misery,
The core of my loss,
Is the person I thought
Would be the one.

A part of me living,
Every cell in its body,
Concerned with the well-being,
Of someone not mine to care for.

All I crave, wish, and desire,
Is to pull him close, hold him tight,
Whisper words of comfort in his ear,
Assure him of my eternal support.

I feel like a custom-made product,
Unable to find its owner, 
The special person
That they were made for.

 

My best (one of my favourites, but who knows re: quality!!):

By his own hand:

Azure waters, deep and soothing,
each wave's whisper, seafoam blooming.
She called to me from past the deck,
"lift the veil and expose its neck!"

The ocean's neck was hard to find,
hidden well by veil, foam entwined.
Lapping of waves against the boat,
soon hinted at the shape of throat.

My hand shot out to feel the flesh,
or foam or fish or kelp or mesh.
Saw it under shallow water,
the voice urging me to slaughter.

The voice grew loud, then I had it.
Nails were claws, strong was each digit.
I watched as pearlescent turned red,
eager to see the ocean dead.

The more I pressed, the more I choked.
My fervour hid my own neck, soaked.
With every wave that passed it by,
New marks formed unseen by my eye.

My hands grew limp, my marks purple.
The ocean fled, a criminal.
Last sight before I slid under:
The voice. Tail. Witness to murder.

 

I think that part of the reason I hate the first one is also because it's associated with so many emotions that now feel melodramatic (it was during a breakup, my first one). I look back and am ashamed, even though I know I shouldn't be. It's even scarier to post it as a result! Sigrid says it's melodramatic, that it's embarrassing, that it's full of cliches, that it paints me as pathetic, that it's of low quality, and that it can never grow into anything marvellous.

And now, Sigrid, you can leave! Thanks!