PostsChallengesPortalsBooksAuthors
Posts
Challenges
Portals
Books
Authors
Sign Up
Search
About
Profile avatar image for Sydneyjay
Follow
Sydneyjay
Some form of Carpe Diem
90 Posts • 56 Followers • 47 Following
Posts
Likes
Challenges
Books
Challenge
Pen to the Paper 21
Don't plan. Just write. Whatever the heck you want, I don't care. And, yeah, you can draft it multiple times. Happy Mother's Day, mothers!
Profile avatar image for Sydneyjay
Sydneyjay
• 7 reads

Pattern without rhyme: A not-so-free verse

I can feel myself

Slowly slipping away from me

Forgetting the things that I used to love

The reasons to live

The reasons to die

So I'm stuck mere existence

Just floating around like—not a ghost—

Nothing I can think of that is neither here nor there

Except me

I do the same things over and over

Day after day

Watching the clock

Knowing the feeling of two hours

Exactly how long a minute actually is

Because I watch the time so much now

Do you know the feeling? Of time passing? I feel it

It breathes down my neck

A tick

....tick

With no boom

It's like I feel my soul flickering

Like a candle in the wind

My will fading

Like paint on aged wall

Blotched ink on faded paper

I don't wake up with excitement

I don't look forward to the day any longer

I teach the kids, exercise, drink a lot of water

I do only things that are good for me now

Do you know the feeling? When the thrill of doing something you shouldn't do leaves you? I know it

It's what makes life worth living you know

Doing things you shouldn't do

Enjoying the thrill of defying something, someone, yourself, society

No matter how little you do defy

And when that's gone, what is left?

I can feel the hollowness in my being

A silence where my curiosity used to be

I do things

But I put them off for much longer

There's a pattern

But there's no rhyme

I'm starting to feel like the poems I write

Do you know the feeling?

4
1
2
Challenge
Why so serious?
Profile avatar image for Sydneyjay
Sydneyjay in Comedy
• 16 reads

I’m over being serious... clearly

I am not sure if this is in Comedy because there are 218 entries and counting, to win $3 in 11 years and some have clearly been waiting longer than that. Talk about long term investments but without any gains. Actually more like a piggy bank that may or may not belong to you, depending on time, chance or circumstance.

Or if it is because of the title of the challenge, which, because of the prize and time frame of the challenge, already makes us all very unserious.

Or if it is because A is clearly a Prose Gold user exercising his full rights by creating such a challenge. And which reminds me so much of Tumblr Blaze, if you know what I'm talking about.

Or if it is because there is a high probability the winner could be sick or dead and $3 will either not matter or A would get to keep his $3, except he won't because it would be in a dead person's wallet.

Or if it is because said winner could be me.

BONUS: Or if it's because this challenge is either democracy, in which case we will know the winner in 2033, on the very last day of the challenge.

Or monarchy in which case, A gets to go through 218 entries and counting, in which case, the result will most likely be biased or limited to what A can remember of this many entries. Or in which case, we never find out the winner, because a number of things could happen to A in 11 years including death (which A is forced not to take offense to no matter how young or reluctant to die he is, considering the title of this challenge and the portal in which it was posted).

2
0
3
Book cover image for Excerpts From HADEN
Excerpts From HADEN
Chapter 0 of 1
Profile avatar image for Sydneyjay
Sydneyjay

1. Doomed

Everyone needs a little bit of falsehood once in a while, it’s what makes the world go round. Not money, not love. Lies.

-H.A.L.M

0
0
0
Challenge
Nature
Write something inspired by nature - landscape nature, human nature...
Profile avatar image for Sydneyjay
Sydneyjay
• 24 reads

Lift your head to the skies, oh dear

There was something beautiful in it

Wasn't there?

When a drop of rain hit

Fell on you, oh dear

seemingly

Out of nowhere

And you lifted your head

Up to the skies

Twisted and turned your neck,

Where your eyes lead

And searched

As if you could find precisely

Where the sky had opened up

And leaked such a tiny needle of water

From that expanse of depth and blue and matter

Something beautiful in it dear

If only I could find it

And put it

Into words

If only I could find you

And bring you back into this world

Where you can once again lift your eyes

To the sky

And search this expanse of depth, blue and matter

Once again.

4
3
6
Profile avatar image for Sydneyjay
Sydneyjay in Poetry & Free Verse
• 8 reads

Simplicity

The scent of rain

Reminds me of sand

And calm, peace

and a deep breath

Doing nothing, relaxed

Winter, closed eyes

A hot nice meal, a cold drink in the summer

The simple things, simple plain words

The right now

Indescribable feelings that are somehow just right

And simple in their 'indescribability'

Everything plain and uncomplicated

It is what it is

No rhymes

Showing just how little humans

Really know

And just how okay it is

That humans really know

Very little.

2
1
1
Challenge
When I close my eyes
Freestyle whatever comes to mind when you read “when I close my eyes”
Profile avatar image for Sydneyjay
Sydneyjay in Poetry & Free Verse
• 12 reads

It shouldn’t make sense

When I close my eyes,

I breathe better

'cause I see nothing

So nothing matters

When I close my eyes

I breathe deeper

'cause I hear everything

So everything hits softer

When I close my eyes

I breathe easier

'cause I feel one thing

So one thing kisses harder

When I close my eyes

I breathe lighter

'cause I feel something

So something burns brighter

And I take flight.

4
1
3
Challenge
Paradise
What are you looking forward to when you reach paradise? In 15 words.
Profile avatar image for Sydneyjay
Sydneyjay
• 17 reads

My paradise

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Silence. Silence.

Peace.

5
2
4
Challenge
In 15 words, capture a recurring moment in your life.
Happy, sad, funny, mundane, frightening. Anything goes.
Profile avatar image for Sydneyjay
Sydneyjay in Stream of Consciousness
• 7 reads

1 a.m

Life's short. So why do I think this tonight,

tomorrow I wake and waste it?

4
2
1
Challenge
Help answer one of philosophy's greatest questions: can you REALLY tell a hawk from a handsaw?
Self-explanatory really. Or is it...?
Profile avatar image for Sydneyjay
Sydneyjay
• 24 reads

Out of context

Ok, I read the other entries and I know I'm probably supposed to take this seriously, but as I write now, I don't think I'm going to do that.

So first, I've never read Hamlet and will most definitely never will (I'm not close minded, I just don't like Shakespeare. Okay, maybe I AM close minded OR I just have the taste of my generation. Who knows?)

Anyway, I saw the prompt and the first thing that came to my mind at seeing handsaw and hawk side by side was the tool and the bird. ANYONE would be able to tell those apart. So I thought, okay, it's probably not the tool. Philosophical questions can be uhmm...what should I call them? Annoyingly far-fetched but maybe not that much?

Long story short, I discovered the Heronsaw aka handsaw. This is the part where I should probably mention that philosophy in general is a no go area for me. Maybe philosophy with science (e.g Zhuangzi and the butterfly=Schrodinger's cat. Was that your prompt too batmaninwuhan?) But this is philosophy in literature so I will approach it the way I know, by mentioning all the ways bird vs bird is still far-fetched.

1. The Heronsaw has a much longer beak than the hawk.

2. The Heronsaw has a much longer neck than the hawk.

3. I think the wings are even different but my eyes hurt and I'm tired from the day I've had so I couldn't look into the details.

4. There are many more differences. Just get two pictures, a Heronsaw and a hawk, put them side by side, and you will see why I just don't get this.

Out of context, is it depth to ask whether a person could tell a hawk from a handsaw? The only way anyone wouldn't is if:

1. they are generally illiterate when it comes to other living organisms that are not humans, and so don't know the difference between the two birds.

2. they don't have access to Google. I certainly do.

3. they haven't read Hamlet and so are not familiar with these words.

4. the wind is north-north-west or northerly, and the sun is a beast in their eyes, which then makes this question a whole lot more sensible. (This, you won't also understand if you are a victim/culprit of number 3.)

Context, people, it's all about context.

That's it. I quit.

3
2
3
Profile avatar image for Sydneyjay
Sydneyjay
• 49 reads

First Announcement

I meant to post this in the challenge before it ended. However, the earlier I plan to be, the later I always end up. It's probably just better to do less planning and more doing...bla... Anyway, here are the entries I enjoyed most from the challenge 'How do you come back from losing the one(s) you love?'

First, I'd like to say all the entries were great. But, approaches, strong emotions and resonation were major factors used in arriving at this decision. Although I ended up with five winners many times, I finally arrived at this:

Winner:

AlisonAudrey - 'I have died'

Honorable mentions (ranked top to bottom):

Estherflowers1 - 'A Facsimile is the Best we can do'

DeAnn - 'Loss is not an Easy Road'

Finder - 'Grief'

Godavenzi - 'About Losing'

TW - 'Your Exo/Endo Hellscape

PS: I was tempted to just put these entries on the same line and call it a contest. But at the end of it, each of them resonated with me differently. Being the only judge might make this appear biased but, hey! that's what I got.

5
2
8