Best Pressures Poems
Pressures of Life
By
Larry Rawlins
In my teen years, the excitement of weekend nights
The thrill of hearing my car racing tight
The excitement of finding the girl who was right
The thankfulness of being Mr. Cool and winning the fight
But Oh, the weight of the pressure of life
In middle years, gratitude of well-paying job, hoping to live a comfortable life
The love of watching our kids growing up, through their pains and strife
Then comes the worry they will leave you behind
The pain you feel from mistakes you wish you could rewind
But oh the weight of the pressure of life
In the latter years, you suddenly realize
It’s the little things that mean the most, hoping you didn’t sever the ties
Not weekend nights, or who could drink the most booze
Or not even being the one who is always right, when you knew you would lose
But oh the weight of the pressure of life
For now the end is near, we ask the questions, no one wants to hear.
Will today be the last day, and is this all
No more hot summers, cold winters or cool falls
For oh the weight of the pressure of life takes its toll
Question yourself, look into your soul.
But oh the weight of the pressure of life
If freshman year was aspirational
and sophomore year was unhinged
junior year was put up or shut up
and senior year is a dash to the finish line
This year’s on fast forward—and it’s for keeps
every to-do list has value-laden questions
things seem sharp edged, single use and intense
it’s all about trajectories and ‘landing spots”
Let’s wax poetic..
Produce now, or spend fury on thyself—all else is untenable
we’re past youth and ignorance—your honour’s at stake
Suitors call you by name, like well-acquainted friends
they took your measure—you’re beyond the mark of others
they seduce with money—the future brings liberty and noble deeds.
So don the the garland and prove thyself—take the field
join the battle—now’s the reward—aidless, perpetual toil
with every motion be right, it’s thy shunless destiny.
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A song for this:
A Man of Great Promise by The Style Council
Headstart For Happiness by The Style Council
Pressures of Life
They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder
That having no perfection but being confident makes you appear bolder.
Reality is far better when my eyes are closed
I see burning arrows coming at me looking at the life I chose.
Held down by gravity forcing me to succumb to this life
And I'm back to being bothered with the pressures of life.
Just thinking of her deigns my heart and mind
Believing there's hope, the more I bleed the more I tried.
Her imperfections turned to memories clouding my mind
Becoming a shadow even during the day, accentuating my strife
And I'm back to being bothered with the pressures of life.
Is it okay to care... or is it such a fault?
Our imperfections are what keeps us from a complete halt.
Looking outside the box, I realise I need to learn more about me
No more pittance for my thoughts but rather a large fee.
So until the day death takes me for her life...
I will continue to be bothered with the pressures of life.
My life keeps changing everyday
Sometimes I wish that I were far away
Then I look around this world and see
That this is not really all about me
The pressures of daily life come to everyone
And will always happen until our time here is done
So we try to do the best that we can do
And always remember that the lord will see us through
So take some time out of your busy day
Stop and think, then start to pray
I know that this will help and I know that this is true
Because it has happened to me
And it can also happen to you
Over the holidays, I was watching Lisa’s sister little Leeza, she’s 14.
She has a rebellious fashion sense and a joyful innocence.
She’s still fearless too, and on-God, I hope she never loses that.
Too soon though—the disco’s coming to town—the world’s coming for her. It’s the same for all of us, I suppose, but in Lisa and my cases, covid shut it all down.
It’s a rite of passage—the shoes, the bodycon dresses and the makeup. Those carry negative connotations, I get it, but there’s an excitement too, about finally getting to dress like an adult—a woman—in one of those bodycon, cut-out dresses.
I know the pressures on women and their bodies, but at her age, it's not all stress, cattiness and comparisons—it’s just innocent teen fun. She and her posse can take hours just dressing and doing their make-up—together. It’s probably the best part of their night.
Leeza’s dad (Michael) saw the little group of teens, all dolled-up and launched, like a SpaceX Starship. Pacing the living room, he quietly opined to Karen (her mom), “I don’t want her going out dressed like that.”
Karen was right there with him to cool things down, “No, hun, at her age, it’s about self-expression, learning and girl bonding—these connections are really important in the girl-world.”
I’m not worried about Leeza’s physical safety. These girls are watched over and gently curated. Their every movement is orchestrated and security escorted—hell, Hamas couldn’t get to them—much less some gropey boy.
There’s just this new awareness these days of how unhappy some people are—and a lot of them are teen girls. I wouldn’t want to see Leeza mired in the sad, brain-draining social media pressure and self-esteem traps.
Teenhood is scary—I was feelin’ positively parental.
Then I looked at Lisa, and I was reminded that they’ve done all this before, and she has a big-sister, role-model too.
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Songs for this:
Good Time Girl (feat. Charlie Barker) by Sofi Tukker
Dance To This (feat. Ariana Grande) by Troye Sivan
The earth becomes so congested
Condominiums spring up
Like mushrooms after the rain
Rooms become so congested
Like the hearts
Full of greeds and dreams
Like the souls
Full of expectations and pressures
Many hearts and many souls
Confined in a block of cement walls
But hearts and souls
With different dreams and expectations
Can never be confined
Can never reach a compromise
To keep peace and serenity
On earth
Even with God's advice
When I’m not tapped into a music stream.
I like quiet
no - let’s be exact,
I like silence
ear plugs in - deafening quiet
or better yet, noise cancelled anti-sound
That’s relatively new technology
My mom mentioned new studies suggest it may rewire things
gray matter wise, you know, behind the eyes
like the patterns sound forms in sand.
But if you’re going to scramble my mind
your going to have to wait in line behind
bland 21-year-old issues like:
sleep deprivation
hormonal fluctuations
romantic fog
case study competitions
business model design games (REALGAME)
deductive logic puzzles
irritability and mood swings
mental bandwidth anxiety
cognitive confusion
information overload
assignment stress
premenstrual syndrome
compulsive coping mechanisms
career anxiety
sexual frustration
multitasking shifts (schedule)
canon events (existential dilemmas)
culture shock (new environment)
feeling “scrambled”
family pressures
So, yeah. let’s fn Jettison headphone worries - MOM - shall we??!
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Right Now by The Creatures
A Girl In Trouble (Is a Temporary Thing) by Romeo Void
Your Turn to Run by Malaria!
Judging people is common,
In our youth of today;
People are bullied and ridiculed,
For what others seem to say.
But God has made you different,
So you can be told apart;
He really does know everyone,
From their smile to their heart.
Remember yesterday has gone,
But tomorrow hasn't been;
Don't dwell on your past,
Think of the future unseen.
Ideas implanted,
Without my consent.
Holding me in contempt,
Knowing I need to vent.
But I don't know how.
So I,
Aimlessly prance around,
Smile, but wanna frown.
Head up, but feeling down.
Pretentiously playing a clown.
That tension internally, stirring, destructively, creating the beast, nowhere to release, who should I be?
Who they want me to be?
Emotions, causing commotions, unsatisfied with the notion.
Drinking the magic potion.
And it's filled,
With “love”.
But it's conditional, & subliminal, stealing my soul like a criminal.
But the system calls the plays, and I’m the receiver
Masking everything, creating an unfulfilled deceiver
Now I'm a believer.
In,
Blazing your own trail.
Do it your way,
And you’ll uncover the veil.
Congestions
Occur in the brain
Pressures and tensions
Workloads and targets
Competitions and expectations
Time limits and deadlines
All contribute to
A serious spiritual traffic jam
With
No by-pass
No overhead bridge
As life is not as simple
As a traffic jam on the road
We have to pay for every bit of prosperity
who is everyone anyway?
Everyone laughs,
So do I,
Everyone smirks,
So do I,
Everyone taunts,
So do I,
Everyone pushes,
So do I.
But now everyone is pushing me down,
So am I,
I see a blur, a mist, a haze,
I see a crowd under a foggy cascade,
I see many bodies but no individuals,
It’s hard to believe i was one of them once.
But I know one thing.
‘Everyone’ is not a reality,
‘Everyone’ is a distraction,
‘Everyone’ is an unwanted attention.
‘Everyone’ claims to be there for need,
But when I cry they don’t even pay heed.
‘Everyone’ has 8 syllables,
And ‘I’ has only one.
‘Everyone’ is not one person,
It is a crowd,
It is not a beautiful hill,
It is an ugly mound.
So who is everyone anyway?
To judge me, to taunt me, to push me, to make me cry, to lower my fly, to grab me and pull me down, to even as much try to make me frown, to make my face wrinkle from even a single sad muscle, to make me doubt myself, to make my heart and body tuffle.
Who is everyone anyway?
I can’t even see them, let alone feel them,
Still they manage to pressure me,
I give that a sarcastic nod,
‘Cause I know ‘everyone’ is a fraud.
Life is never a fairy tale,
Neither is it a nightmare,
Life is a moral story, teaching you a lesson every day,
Teaching you to be different from the given array.
Nobody from ‘everyone’ will come at your door with a lost shoe,
Wanting you to be a princess, because Cinderella never lived to be true.
In real life, music doesn’t play and confetti doesn’t blow,
One has to tear the bits with sheer grit and sweat to write the music flow.
\the journey of life is tough,
And the road is rough,
But the view from top is nothing but content.
So, my peers love yourself, be yourself, be your own queen
And ‘everyone’ would lean,
To see what is different in you,
Why are you not vanishing in the mist?
The answer is because ‘everyone’ doesn’t own you,
Everyone doesn’t make you bother,
Because I have finally learnt to be my own fairy godmother,
And to sew my gown of destiny and mold my tough glass slippers in solitude but never alone.
Peer pressure is a beast
I have been trying to tame
But temptation sets in
Trying to keep myself sane
The peer pressurer knows
He has pressured his way
Yes is the only answer
Pressured, No you can't say
Will you break to the pressure
When the pressure is on
Say yes to the question
When you know it's wrong
You have pressured me this
So I will riddle you back
Maybe I'm the peer pressurer
And your caught in my trap
At first I had to loose
Give into the pressure
Be a student at best
Listen to the lecture
The peer pressurer laughs
As his pressure it builds
Tempting you to give in
Pressured feelings of guilt
Everyone has fallen
At one time or another
Being pressured persistently
By peer pressure of others
Everyone is guilty
For using peer pressure
To sway the mind
With a pressuring gesture
When put up against
Peer pressure that's strong
Will you be peer pressured
When the pressure is on
Written 2-23-19
This poem I like in particular. A favorite of my own, I've written so far
Pressures we impose
Face adversity, survive and define your spin and be an advocate for the torment
I feel like I am always late for something and I need to be somewhere important, but I don’t and no one wants me anywhere.
I have disappointed everyone and let them down especially me
I have no feeling of moving forward to anything of value, I have no value and importance and no sense of accomplishment. I hate my last few years and how they have ruined me as a person and destroyed any integrity I ever had.
I am tortured by my isolation and no contact with my outside world
I really hope the feeling I have that I am meant for greater things is true and I will still achieve them I need help, I need a sign, I need guidance I pray for clarity and hope I see a path that will allow me to be the man I want to and need to be
I needed a hand to guide me, a true friend to stand beside me
Create a rock you cannot lift, that is where anxiety grows
Offer your hand to the entire world and disappointment is the result it shows
force, punish, burden,
insistent coercion, and threat,
compulsion, tension.
Stressful stranglehold,
urge, force per unit area,
fuss, influence, duress.
A woman
Is no longer a prisoner
In a family
Like the olden days
Now
With her own pursuits
Own interests
Own wellbeings
And
No more intensive pressures
From the mother-in-law
Or anyone else's dictatorship
A new person is born
To the society
To a new era
And now
The death of a prisoner
Has ended the miserable stories
Of women
In the olden days