#NaPoWriMo Day 9: An Artist’s To-Do List.

After eight days of challenging prompts, back-to-back, napowrimo.net decided to give us a break today by asking us to write a poem in the form of a to-do list. More specifically, the to-do lists of unusual people.

And artists are as unusual as they make them. I say that because I am an artist and I know that every single artist out there has their own unique way of looking at the world. This poem just happens to be a hilarious call-out to artists everywhere, myself included.

Before you proceed, this is a reminder to check out my best friends’ blogs (Kittu’s Modern Mixtape and Amour Infini) for their poetry. We are doing NaPoWriMo together this year and I’m sure everyone deserves to read the wonderful things they put out there.

I hope you enjoy reading this (and find a piece of yourself in the poem, too)! Don’t miss the endnotes for more! Xx

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Wake up
Write about your dreams
(Try to go back to sleep to dream what is incomplete)
Wake up, really!

Brew a pot of coffee as dark as your soul
Over-think in the shower
Daydream for hours
Look for shapes in the clouds
Try to paint what you see
Daydream some more

Read a nice book or some poetry
(Don’t forget lunch, eat before the clock strikes 4)
Finish that painting you started
(Or procrastinate, I’m not your boss!)
Don’t lose track of time as you paint
Don’t forget to drink 2 litres of water for the day

Learn a new word
(Then obsess over it)
Forget to reply to all the messages left by your friends
Check for important mail
Water the plants that keep drying out

Stare into the void and over-think
Watch the same, old sappy movies and cry
Write down new ideas you’ll never get around to
(Or try to work on all of them at once)
Juggle twenty different things until you get bored
Actually finish painting what you started
Then stare at it until you don’t think it’s good enough anymore

Have you eaten food at a human time today? Yeah, I didn’t think so, either!

Go out for a bit and stare at the moon
Look up at the sky until your neck hurts
Wander about aimlessly
Try to clear your head
End up over-thinking
Make up unrealistic scenarios (and break your own heart)
Write it all down in poetry and prose, instead

Space out and stay up till it’s 3AM (again!)
Write about your day in that diary you keep forgetting about
Swear you’ll sleep on time tomorrow (you won’t)

Read under a faint light in the dark
Write that random idea that strikes you late at night
(You know, the one you won’t make sense of, tomorrow?) 
Kick around under the blanket
Flip your pillow over to the side that is cold
Let existential dread take over
Over-think until your eyelids close

Wake up
And do it all over once more.

~© Shubhangi Srinivasan.

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This poem was so easy to write and it just ended up being the funniest poem that I have ever written because most of it is based on the very real things that we all end up doing. If you could see a little bit of yourself here, I hope you know that every word written here is just meant to be light-hearted and never to be taken seriously. The poem is more of a personal attack at myself than it is at anybody else. Either way, I hope you enjoyed reading the poem.
Yours truly,
The Shubhster. Xx

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Featured Image by Giulia Bertelli on Unsplash