While I don’t necessarily hide my real name, as my Smashwords and Facebook accounts both use it, I had started blogging as PCGuyIV well before I had either of those, and just never bothered to change it. I do kind of like the artificial anonymity it provides, but I don’t make a big deal about it if someone actually calls me by my name in a comment.

Of course, when I started blogging, I wasn’t doing it for the sake of blogging, but rather for the sake of showing off my skills with HTML and CSS, though I quickly learned to enjoy the writing process as well. But that’s just blogging in general. I didn’t get around to the poetry thing unil a bit later.

Whereas my decent into madness…er…I mean, my attempts at blogging began back in 2005, or maybe even earlier, I didn’t start posting poetry on my blogs until 2014. And that brings me to this year, when I found out about NaPoWriMo. I wish I could say exactly what possessed me to throw my hat into the ring. I know it was at least partially fueled by the thought of putting together a follow-up to my first poetry book, but I had one of those what-was-I-thinking freak-out moments as soon as I submitted my site to the participants list.

Now, here we are five days into May, and NaPoWriMo is over. While I did my best to stick with the given prompts, there were some days that I had to just go out on my own, but I managed to successfully write a poem a day, including one for the March 31st early-bird submission.

The thing that surprised me the most about NaPoWriMo was how much I enjoyed reading the poems from the other participants. I’ve often said that I’m not a big fan of poetry, or at least I’ve never thought of myself as such, so I was genuinely surprised at how much I started to look forward to seeing what others had come up with, and I find myself already barely able to stand the anticipation of next April.

Looking back over the thirty-one poems I came up with, there are a few that stand out, but it is difficult to choose a favorite. I finally settled on the submission for April 25th. The prompt for that day was to write a poem that served as a warning label for yourself. Without further ado, I present to you, “Warning Label”:

Handle carefully
To avoid unpleasantness
Provide with coffee