March Thirty-First: NaPoWriMo: Cage — Behind the Bars of Time

We’ll be back tomorrow with our first daily featured participant and resource, along with a prompt. But for now, and to help out all of you for whom April 1 comes a bit earlier than it does to Na/GloPoWriMo’s secret headquarters (yes, our lair is built into a volcano), here’s an early-bird prompt: Pick a word from the list below. Then write a poem titled either “A [your word]” or “The [your word]” in which you explore the meaning of the word, or some memory you have of it, as if you were writing an illustrative/alternative definition.

Cage, Ocean, Time, Cedar, Window, Sword, Flute.

I cannot believe I am doing this again this year. After last year's miserable attempt and getting my site removed from the Participants’ Sites due to sheer embarrassment, and then getting it added again this year moments before starting the response for this early-bird prompt for reasons I cannot psychologically concoct right now:

I will probably not post this link in the comments. So, I am choosing the word "Cage." Could it be any more obvious? (I mean, I highlighted it above; that's why...)

In a world where time dances with shadows.
There dwells a bird in a cage of illusion.
Trapped in a cycle of self-doubt's spell within the bars of fate.
Marinated in procrastination's fear,
Its wings, once vibrant with the colors of dawn,
Now wilted, tangled by the ego's sneer.

Each day, the sun rises in a golden blaze.
But for this bird, the dawn is but a distant memory.
It believes it has all the time to spare,
Confident it can step out whenever it dare.
Its cage a prison of perpetual lateness,
A cruel symphony of missed opportunities and regret.

Crispy wind blurries the day into evenings.
Oh, how the bird longs to soar through the skies.
To feel the wind beneath its weary wings,
To embrace the freedom that beckons from beyond.
As it finally moves to take flight,
Reality's wind slaps with all its might.

The world outside moves with purpose and grace.
For time waits for no feathered friend,
While the bird languishes in the sauce of its own making.
Its cage, a silent witness to the passage of time,
a reminder of all that could have been, but never was.
And the moment of freedom finds its end.

The world spins on without it.
Late to emerge from its self-made prison,
The bird learns the hard lesson of time's precision.
As it mourns what could have been fair,
A symphony of regret fills the air.
Soaring dreams now shattered on the ground.

Forever late to the dance of life,
In the cage of hindsight, the bird is bound.

- Oizys.

April 8th, UPDATE: After marinating this piece with self-doubt, procrastination and ego of having all the time in the world, I am posting the link to my response to this early (but, actually, super late..) prompt hoping no one will discover this humiliating chronicle of tardiness.

January 2nd - March 25th — Demon of Regret

From January 2nd till March 25th.

As I reflect upon these past few months, it feels like nothing has changed, yet everything has unfolded in such a way that it's hard to believe. So many unfortunate events have occurred, each one seemingly worse than the last, pushing me to what feels like rolling down the rock bottom. These past months have been filled with rollercoasters and somersaults that have made me question my existence in ways I never imagined. It's as if life has thrown me into a whirlwind of chaos, leaving me disoriented and unsure of how to navigate through it all. Despite it all, I find myself here, still standing, though perhaps a bit shaken. So confused. Why am I still here? Why is everything still continuing? How is this still working? How has everything not crashed into non-existence yet? I've been struggling to find the words to express this throat-churning turmoil within me. It's as if my thoughts have become tangled in a web of confusion, making it difficult to articulate even the simplest of emotions. Writing used to be my refuge, my solace in times of trouble, but now, even the act of putting pen to paper feels foreign and unfamiliar. I had to physically force myself to sit down and write. Just like that, the desire to read, to escape into the world of literature, still lingers within me. Yet, it's as if I've forgotten the language of my own mother tongue, stumbling over words that once flowed effortlessly from my lips.

It is a frustrating sensation, feeling disconnected from something that was once so integral to my being. The only question that lingers in my head is, for how long? What will it finally take to just stop? It is a question, one that echoes through the depths of uncertainty. For how long will this feeling of disconnection persist? What will it take for it to finally come to an end? I feel as if I do not know anything anymore. I feel anciently... new. Like, when a person from a faraway past steps into the present, everything seems both familiar and foreign. There's a sense of recognition, a whisper of memory, yet it's juxtaposed with the overwhelming strangeness of the world around me. Each day blends into the next, a seamless tapestry of moments that blur together in a haze of uncertainty. Time stretches and contracts, twisting and turning in unpredictable ways, leaving me feeling untethered from the rhythms of life that once grounded me. I feel like life is the shepherd and I am just a sheep moving blindly in the herd.

I have gotten used to such levels of discomfort that they have become almost familiar, like old friends that I reluctantly tolerate. The weight of uncertainty, the burden of expectations, the echoes of doubt—they linger like unwelcome guests in the corners of my mind, their presence a constant reminder of the fragility of my existence. This repulsive survival mechanism is honed through years of weathering life's storms that just keep on going against my will. I sit and watch my instinctual desire to survive and persevere push my rising bile of disdain down. No matter what I try, how many times I try to undo everything to put a stop to everything, it just does not stop. So desperately, I have latched onto austere indifference in a hope that will probably erase my existence. I have built this steel sheet that separates me and the world around me. I cocoon myself in a cloak of detachment, somehow convinced, that it's better to feel nothing at all than to risk the pain of living. Yet, even as I wrap myself in the comfort of indifference, there is one feeling that never stops piercing into me.

I am lying on my bed, squirming in prolonged agony. There is a small demon that has pinned my frail body. Regret is the relentless intruder that refuses to be silenced. It pokes me and passes through the steel sheets of indifference.  It whispers in the quiet moments, reminding me of the chances I didn't seize, the words left unspoken, the paths left unexplored. I try to make it succumb to my hefty layers of wool-gathering yet it pierces into them and entangles the echo of missed opportunities and roads not taken into the very fabric of my being. It's as though each thread of remorse weaves itself into the fibres of my existence, creating a tapestry of what-ifs and should-haves that I cannot escape. As I lie here, wrestling with the weight of regret, as though I am locked in a battle with this insidious demon, struggling to break free from its suffocating grip. But no matter how hard I fight, it persists, its whispers growing louder with each passing moment. I try to drown out the echoes of the past with distractions and diversions, seeking solace in the superficial busyness of daily life or building castles in Spain. Yet, in the quiet moments when the noise fades away, regret rears its head once more, reminding me of all that could have been. It's a torment that knows no bounds, a relentless onslaught that leaves me feeling battered and bruised.

- Oizys.