Hope you’re enjoying my crazy little poems- I write them as an attempt to iron out the anxieties and thoughts in my head and hope they may provide a different perspective for other artists/ musicians.

I’m aware how many people suffer from performance anxiety or stage fright and how often the remedies we are given don’t work. The picture attached caught my attention when at the Tate Britain on Saturday. I feel the different sections represent the different minds you can adopt when anxious and how everything seems disconnected and alien.

    

Trying not to care is the beginning of the end
Be aware that you do care, but that caring will make you spend

Every thought and feeling and mood on caring alone

The energy and love for the art withered and cold to the bone.

Perhaps caring wasn’t worth it-Those who give no shits

Often give the best performance And avoid all panic and fits. 

But why do those who love suffer for their art the most?

Performing is running naked, like confronting a ghost

Every part of you is on show, every ounce of what you love

And you pray the music will be there, that your preparation is enough

But nothing’s ever good enough for those who suffer from art

Things I ignored in practice suddenly tear up my heart

I worry I wasn’t true to myself and that the music wasn’t divine

I ask for reassurance from the audience, for any little sign

That I proved myself to them even if it wasn’t how my dreams play

And they tell me it was fabulous, that my playing made their day 

And sometimes they see through me and tell me it was tense

And I’ll cry and try once again to relax and make it less dense. 

When will I be able to state that playing in my room

Is just the same as a recital, an audition, my heart would go boom

But when you get up to perform you’re always torn away 

Of what calm what joy and what love you experienced yesterday

The energy is no longer focused on the love and the sound

But now on proving yourself to yourself and trying to the world

It’s only when other people watch that I dissolve to this state

Because I know they could love me too, but I’m surrounded by this hate

A hatred for exposing myself incase it goes tits up

But a hatred for not trying, even though trusting brings me luck.

Be truthful on what you love and hate and explore exactly why

The petty judgments from other people make you cry and sigh

So stop trying to stay true to your music, your art, your love

Stop caring about not caring, it’ll be easy and pleasantly pure as a dove.